


Detroit: Being Human

by GreenTam



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Being Human (UK) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, F/M, Flashbacks to war, M/M, Vampire Connor, does it count as a major character death if markus is a ghost, ghost markus, more characters added as time goes on, no beta reader live fast die young, werewolf alice, werewolf kara
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-28
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-05-29 21:52:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15082502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenTam/pseuds/GreenTam
Summary: ON HIATUSCarl couldn’t bear to live in the house after what happened, but neither could he bear to sell it. So instead he put it up for rent.Tenant after tenant, none of them stayed longer than a month or two: kept claiming their stuff was being moved around and they could hear piano music playing at night. He's one last tenant away from giving in and selling his beloved home when a peculiar man, his equally unusual sister and her daughter apply to live in the house.He expects they'll end up running out practically screaming just the same as all the others. He is wrong.The Being Human AU literally no one asked for.





	1. Last Tenants

These days a big house like his would have a rent so high only a rich professional or someone of old money would have been able to afford it. Initially that had been the case, Carl’s agent put the house up for a hefty cost and it had caught the interest of a lovely new family: the kind that the agency insisted were the type to rent long term and Carl needn’t worry about having to find another tenant anytime soon.

They were of course warned about the home’s… history, but they didn’t seem to mind- at least the husband didn’t, the wife seemed disturbed but still infatuated with the building’s classical beauty- and the contract was signed.

A month and a half later, Carl got a call from the housing agency that his tenants are leaving by the end of the week. Odd, but at the time he thought nothing of it outside of a niggling worry about affording two homes even on his comfortable pension.

To his and the agency’s dismay, the next tenant only lasted a week before bailing out. Didn’t give any notice, just walked out in the middle of the night and rang in the morning to tell them he was never setting foot in ‘that fucking house’ again.

For the next year and a half this became a pattern. New tenants moved in, and then fled the scene within a set period: the longest lasted three months. They all had their odd stories about the place: some claimed their furniture moved without anything touching it, others said they would hear piano music playing at odd hours of the day even when to Carl’s ire they had moved the piano out into the dusty shed at the end of the garden.

Haunted, they said. Nonsense, Carl always said back.

“Just sell the place, dad” Leo groaned for the upteenth time, his leg bouncing irritably. He could never look at his father, instead he looked up at the paintings decorating Carl’s smaller home or at the monitors of Carl’s support machines. “You can’t keep any tenants and you can’t afford to keep paying for a house you’re not even living in”

In the bed, with a pile of letters he’d come to call the ‘Omen’ pile, Carl watched his son. From the fidget alone he knew his son was using, still using, and had probably gotten worse since that night. He wanted to reach out and take Leo’s hand but experience told him the younger man would only flinch away.

What happened had been hard on the both of them and it bothered Carl each night that he was becoming sicker and sicker. He wouldn’t be around forever, not for much longer and he could feel it in his bones and that frightened him not for the reason most would expect. He was old and he’d lived his life well, it wasn’t himself he was scared for. As far as he knew Leo had no one else but him- no one at least with his best interest at heart- so when Carl was gone who would be there to take care of a kid who didn’t care to look after himself?

He’d offered the house to Leo once and been shocked by how harshly his son turned down the chance to continue living in his childhood home. Instead, since Carl first moved out, Leo had pushed for the house to be sold on and brushed out of their lives.

“One more try, I’ll lower the rent-”

Leo snapped, eyes meeting his father’s for a brief second before darting away again. Raw and glassy from drugs. “You can’t keep lowering it, dad. The rent is shit and you know it. That house is worth way more and yet you’ve dropped the rent right down to what? A bag of peanuts?”

Carl sighed. Wary. Tired. Beginning to give into Leo’s suggestions. The truth was he was scared to sell the house because then it would be gone forever: his access to all the memories, the notches he knows are still on the archway of the living room marking the escalating heights of children, the cracked tile in the kitchen where his rambunctious boys dropped the cookie jar as they tried to sneak another treat without him noticing. That would all be gone if he sold it, whereas at least with renting he could still call it his own.

And besides, he was almost certain Leo would regret his decisions later on. He’d come to regret pushing for the house to be sold off and Carl hoped, one day, that a clean Leo would walk through the house with a fond smile and a bittersweet ache in his heart.

The reminder of that very image stirred within Carl and he brushed off his son once more.

“No. I’m not going to sell it” He raised his voice when Leo tried to interrupt. “One day you will thank me, Leo. You may not see it right now but one day you’re going to feel as I do: you’re going to want to take a look around that house like each room is an archive of memories. Of love”

He reached out to Leo, his boy, and tried not to let his heart break too badly when the man shifted away.

“Please, Leo. Just one more tenant and if that one bails, I promise you I’ll put it up to sell” The old artist conceded and wished his small smile would be returned. Instead he got a shaky nod and a change of topic: predictably asking for more money.

Two weeks after Carl informed his agent to lower the price down again, predictably a new tenant logged their interest. A brother and sister duo, with the sister’s daughter added to the mix: they seemed nice, his agent said, the type to look after the property if they stayed.

If they stayed.

Leo snidely predicted they’d only last a month.

Carl hoped he was wrong.

 

* * *

 

 

“Alice, come on” Kara said, opening the car door for her daughter. The child inside remained however, big brown eyes staring out and up at the house they’d arrived at with trepidation.

The landlord’s agent, a reedy man with startlingly wide eyes, hovered awkwardly by the car with a clipboard of paperwork and a set of keys. He watched the mother try to coax out her child with a knowing look on his face: he’d seen so many small families and single professionals alike arrive much like this group was, and they’d all disappeared the same way. Perhaps the child could sense the unrest in the house, he’d heard some of them were attuned to that kind of thing, and he let out a sympathetic hum.

As Kara dropped to her knees beside Alice, the agent turned to the final member of the trio moving in. A young man wearing sunglasses ill suited for the overcast day, around the same age as the mousy blonde woman seconds away from carrying her child out of the car, but taller and more angular. They didn’t look like siblings. The agent had assumed at first that they were married: but the pair had rushed to explain they were just brother and sister while the little girl giggled into her dog plushie.

“Mr. Anderson?” The agent greeted as the man in question shut the trunk and dipped to pick up the second suitcase he had just unloaded. The elder agent noted the sparce luggage with a raised eyebrow, but said nothing more.

The house came fully furnished after all, and perhaps the rest of their belongings were being delivered separately and had yet to arrive.

He stared into the dark shades as Connor put down the suitcases on the sidewalk so he could offer the agent a hand to shake. “Yes. That’s me. Good morning, I hope we didn’t keep you waiting too long?”

They hadn’t, the agent assured him as he refrained from commenting on Connor’s odd eye wear given the winter's day, and then gestured for the group to follow him. “If we’re all set?”

He didn’t offer to help with the luggage. He simply gave a thin smile when the little girl finally dropped out of the car and huddled close to her mother, looking up at him and the house as though they were going to eat her.

“It’s okay, Alice” Kara whispered, stroking a hand over Alice’s hair as the two shuffled up the steps after the agent, with Connor coming up behind them. The prepaid cab wasted no time taking off the moment it they were clear.

Kara cast a quick look behind her at Connor, who nodded at her blankly, and took a deep breath. The walk up to the front door was short and soon the cold air of November was forgotten as she stepped into a grand looking home as golden as the heat seeping into her bones from it, and her jaw dropped: only Connor had seen the house, he’d handled everything while Kara and Alice handled their other business, and had only shown them a picture of the outside on Google maps so her first look inside was a shock.

They were going to live _here_?

A little gasp by her knees told her Alice felt the same.

“If you’d like to follow me to the kitchen, there’s a few things left to sign for and then I can let you get settled in” The agent interrupted their gazing, arching an arm around to show the way through to said kitchen. “As stated in the information pack, the house comes fully furnished and decorated. The owner expects you to maintain a level of cleanliness and respect for the property. Any items you wish to have removed can be arranged by calling the number at the top of the pack, but please do not sell any of them yourselves”

Connor nodded along, having heard and agreed to all this already. He stepped into the kitchen after the agent and put the suitcases down by the door, tucked away but easily accessed. With his hands free he took of his sunglasses and tucked them folded into the front pocket of his suit. He could feel the agent watching him and flexed his hands to give the impression that they were sore from carrying the heavy load.

“If you both could come and sign these final forms, then we can all be on our way” The man sounded annoyed, but Connor couldn’t place why. No. Not annoyed, but agitated.

He glanced quickly at Kara and she raised her eyebrows at him: smelling what Connor could smell. The scent of fear on the man’s skin.

“Is something the matter?” Kara asked as Connor began flipping through the form to check the final details. The agent jumped at the question, his eyes pinned on the archway behind them, and it seemed to take physical strain for him to look away and meet her concerned gaze.

He nodded, shaky. “Yes, absolutely fine. I’ve just got a busy schedule today and you were running late. So if we can hurry along?”

Connor frowned. That wasn’t what the man had told them just outside moments before.

“You seem upset” He noted, signing his name along the dotted line on each copy of the contract, before passing the pen along to Kara to do the same. Connor quirked his head at the taller, older man.

The agent pushed up his glasses and shook his head, once more insisting everything was fine. As Kara handed him the pen, all four heads shot up to look at the ceiling when a scraping sound came from above: startling the agent into dropping it.

Alice dipped to pick it up for him shyly, as Kara and Connor turned to the agent with wide eyes.

“What was that?” They asked together.

At first he didn’t answer them, opting instead to squiggle out a messy signature along the remaining lines and shoving their copy into Connor’s chest- the sound appeared to have heightened the man’s urgency to leave.

“You’ll find out soon enough” The agent murmured under his breath as he gathered up the company’s copy of the contract and jerkily offered Kara the keys. In a louder tone, he replied. “Nothing. If that’s all, I’ll leave you be and do give that number a call if there’s anything you need: I’ll be seeing myself out now”

With bemusement written on their faces, the trio watched as the agent seemed to lunge out of the kitchen in long strides of his spindly legs, and Alice jumped when he slammed the front door on his way out.

Her small hand curled into Kara’s, and she squeezed it comfortingly in return.

“Come on Alice, let’s go see the rooms. You can have first pick: what do you say?” The woman asked, ducking slightly to better see the little girl. Alice gave a small smile, and nodded. With a final look over at Connor, Kara smiled tiredly and led the child out of the kitchen and into what would be their new home.

It was a large home, Kara realised, much larger than she had first thought it would be when Connor told her he’d found a place. She had expected a small apartment like their last one, with maybe only two rooms instead of the single Kara and Alice had shared while Connor took the couch, so to see the grandeur before her was mind boggling. Gone were the sleepy greys and blues of their old place and in was a golden, warm feeling of life and a colourful decor leading up the steps that sparked a surprised and delighted gasp from Alice.

She let go of Kara’s hand in her excitement and hopped up each step, breathing out the name of each step’s colour as she did so. “Kara look! It’s a rainbow”

“Yes, it’s pretty” Kara agreed, feeling a long held tension begin to drain from her shoulders. Her hand came to rest on the mahogany banister, smooth under her palm, and she started up the stairs after Alice: only looking back for a moment to see Connor with their luggage methodically following up after them. While Alice was a buzz of excitement, Connor was as restrained and mellow as ever.

The brightness of the house seemed to have broken down Alice’s shy barrier for a moment as the young girl reached the top and immediately started swinging open doors to see inside. A bathroom, a bedroom, and more. She ran up and down the landing a few times, seemingly undecided on which of the three bedrooms she preferred, before darting into one nearest the stairs and the bathroom on the furthest right.

“This one!” Alice chirped from within one room, her voice echoing out to her caretakers. She was practically bouncing on the spot as Kara and Connor shuffled in to join her.

While not the biggest room, it was by far the brightest and the window letting in all the light was deep set with a heavy old style heater and a divan next to it. Perfect for curling up with a book and a blanket, warm, safe and close enough to see the snow fall without suffering the cold it brought with it. Alice hopped up onto the divan and breathed against the glass to form a cloud as Kara walked around the room to inspect it, to ensure it was suitable for a girl of only eight, while Connor lifted up the larger of the two cases to drop it onto the luxurious four poster bed.

Alice drew a heart on the glass just as Kara reached out to touch the curtains surrounding the bed.

“Look Alice, you’re very own princess bed” The woman smiled, warming to the idea of the house. She and Alice had to share a bed in their old place, huddled up on the double under too thin sheets. In a breathless voice, Kara blinked at Connor. “Connor, how did you find this place? It’s incredible”

“By chance. I’d gone into file for another place when I saw this one advertised” Connor replied simply. “I could hardly believe it, I’ll admit”

Kara opened her mouth to ask how on earth they could afford it when a scraping like the one before sounded again. Her jaw clicked shut and Alice squeaked, jumping up and darting back over to Kara to huddle around her legs.

Suddenly on guard, Kara and Connor exchanged a tense look and a nod, before they filtered out into the corridor. Kara kept herself curled around Alice, to protect her from anything that might be a threat, while Connor had his hands curled into fists as he led the way towards the furthest door on the left: far down from them and the door hanging slightly ajar from where Alice had glanced in for just a moment to give her verdict on it.

The trio flinched when the door slammed itself shut.

Bracing himself for a fight, Connor put up a hand to the girls- signalling they stay put- and used his other to slowly twist the door knob. It clicked innocently, and the door barely even creaked as he pushed it open again.

Kara held her breath as Connor stepped in and around the door, his shoulders tense. Alice huddled closer to her.

“Kara…” The cub whined nervously, and she threaded her fingers into Alice’s hair to comfort her.

A beat. Barely a few breaths.

Then Connor’s posture relaxed and he straightened up, pushing the door open fully. When he spoke, Kara could hear his voice was light and friendly: a tone of voice he only ever used when things truly were fine…

“Hello, my name is Connor. I’m the new tenant” He chirped to someone beyond where Kara could see. Deep into the room. From his relaxed form, Kara took it that it was safe to come closer and she walked forwards with more confidence than she felt.

Just as she and Alice poked their heads around the door, slightly shielded by Connor’s form despite his laid back body language, they were met by the sight of a wide eyed young man staring at the three of them as if each of them had seven heads.

He was tall, taller than Connor by only an inch, and had warm, dark tan skin and mystifying mismatched light eyes tinted blue on the right and green on the left. He was dressed for outdoors, robust black combat boots, pants just as dark with pockets lining all over, and a large calico coat with large sleeves giving way only to a slither of the grey long sleeved fleece he wore underneath. It looked too hot to be wearing in the well heated house, the gas turned on in preparation for the new tenants, but the man didn’t seemed to be phased by the no doubt sweltering temperatures he would subject to.

Instead he seemed completely stricken by the newcomers.

“This is Kara, and Alice. They’re going to be living here with me” Connor continued, seemingly unaware of the man’s dumbfound shock.

Kara waved to him, stepping around Connor but keeping Alice close to her side.

The man’s look of a deer caught in headlights seemed to melt away when he caught sight of Alice blinking up at him.

“You… you can see me? You can all _see me_?” The overdressed man asked, tearing his eyes away from Alice’s and back to Connor and Kara. Darting between them as if to check they really were looking at him.

Connor nodded, content and smiling serenely, and having realised this man really was safe; Kara reached out to offer her hand to him.

“Yes, we can” She said softly, feeling her maternal side stretch out to embrace him as his eyes misted over. “Oh sweetie, we can see you. What’s your name?”

The man gulped, beautiful bicoloured eyes glittering with unshed tears, and reached out with a shaking hand. He watched his hand meet Kara’s, letting out a small sound when their skin touched- a sound that dissolved into a wet, disbelieving laugh as he ever so gently shook her hand.

“I’m… I’m Markus- How? How are you seeing me?” Markus asked, timid smile broadening as he kneaded Kara’s hand in his just to check she was real. Connor offered a hand to shake too Markus leapt at the chance, clasping Connor’s hand with more force than he had Kara’s and shaking it with vigour.

Markus let out a delighted sound that had Alice giggling as he threaded his fingers through Connor’s.

Kara and Connor exchanged looks.

“It’s complicated” Kara began, her heart reaching out to the poor, lonely ghost they’d stumbled upon in the big grand house.

Markus, still gripping Connor’s hand as if he was frightened they’d disappear if he let go, looked between the pair of them with an almost wild look of wonder on his face. Kara took a deep breath, deciding to take the lead here, and braced herself for a long explanation.


	2. Pizza Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone explains a few things, and Alice definitely loves pizza more than Connor.
> 
> Chapter trigger warning: Gore, blood and death mention in the first segment.

                                                                                          THEN

* * *

 

When she woke up the sun was hot on her back and the stench of blood filled her nose. Without opening her eyes Kara knew she’d see rivets of crimson and black splattered everywhere: her skin felt tacky, and under her palms she could feel dirt and earth pulled up from loping faster than any Human could flee.

The ache usually under her skin, the feeling of tightness, had gone. The wolf within was sated for another month.

Slowly, Kara opened her eyes and her stomach rolled.

As predicted the ground around her is darkened and sticky: long grass around her painted red from the wolf’s kill the night before. She took a deep breath and pulled herself up into a seated position, arms automatically moving up to cover her breasts and knocking away the sheet of grime gathered on her torso. Under her nails there were lines of red.

Dread sickened her stomach as she looked around for the source. The wolf’s kill. She hoped- prayed- it was a large deer or some other kind of animal and not a person, but it wasn’t long until her eyes found a mutilated carcass of… distinctly Human origin. It wasn’t the first time and yet again she promised herself it would be the last.

Despite the grief and self hatred choking her and misting up her eyes, Kara didn’t have time to dwell in her crushing remorse.

Kara tore her eyes off flesh in ribbons and jutting ribs, seeking out landmarks that might tell her where on Earth she was. With the sun so high she knew it was reaching midday and each moment she spent near the kill site was an inch closer to discovery, so she hauled herself up onto shaky legs and set off through the undergrowth. In her mind she reeled through the confusion: she always picked places she knew people wouldn’t be- the forest, the deserted basements of factories- and she had prepared a route for the wolf to take.

Chicken on a string, tracked through the forest in a never ending circle until the wolf would eventually tire. That was what Luther taught her. That was the routine that had never failed her.... Until now.

Flinching as her bare feet step on twigs and dry leaves, Kara paused momentarily to find… to find… Ah! _There_.

With a half leap Kara darted over to the blue ribbons tied to the branches of a dozen or so nearby trees. The cluster stretched out around in all directions, a fact Kara lamented given her dire situation, and within minutes she found the centre where a large tree was marked by a yellow ribbon. Under it’s high roots was hidden a plastic bag stuffed with a baby wipes, a bottle of water and a change of clothes.

At least, Kara thought as she gulped down half the bottle in one, the stupid wolf didn’t stray out of the perimeter. That meant her victim had for reasons unknown to her been out in the woods, so deep, and stumbled into her carefully constructed territory.

Spitting out what water she swilled in her mouth to remove the taste of blood, Kara recapped the bottle and cast it aside in exchange for the clothes.

“Less speed, more haste, Kara” She told herself after stumbling and fumbling with the strings of her jumpsuit pants. No sooner had she zipped up the jacket Kara’s attention snapped to the wipes, pulling out four or five at once and smearing them over her neck and face to remove most of the damage: lips, cheeks, even up into her hairline and hair. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be enough not to arouse suspicion as she made her way back to her hotel room.

Just as she dumped herself backwards onto her butt, wipes discarded into the bag, to pull on her shoes Kara heard it.

A whimper.

Like a bucket of ice dumped over her the woman froze, breathing harsh and panicked as the sounds continued. Heart beating. Heavy breathing. A small voice crying.

Slowly Kara rolled onto her side, pale eyes wide as she locked straight onto the source of the cries trickling through the otherwise silent forest. There, hiding under a fallen tree and half buried into a dip in the undergrowth: two large brown eyes stared back at her.

They were filled with tears but there was no fear there. The little girl, barely older than eight, curled tighter in on herself when she saw Kara had found her. Over her pale, pretty face Kara could see a bruise blossoming over the child’s cheek spreading around the socket of her left eye but that isn’t the worst of it: across the girl’s shoulder and chest, stretching from right to left, her cardigan was torn into three angry stripes. No longer bleeding but no less deep and red.

Kara’s heart dropped into her feet and a hand slapped over her mouth to muffle the sob that broke through at the pitiful sight.

She’d turned someone. She’d cursed someone… she’d cursed a _child_.

Under the tree, the little girl watched as the strange woman who had once been a huge beast let out a broken, mournful sound and curled in on herself: sobbing hysterically into her hands. All previous urgency gone.

 

* * *

                                                                                          NOW

* * *

 

Unsurprisingly Markus had a hard time believing the pair at first.

“Werewolves?” Markus repeated again, pointing to the duo piled up on the largest couch. After an awkward pause Kara had invited Markus downstairs so she and Connor could explain everything, as somehow it seemed easier down in the living room instead of standing in an old bedroom.

Alice, lying in Kara’s lap thoroughly enjoying the woman’s fingers combing through her hair, grinned at him and nodded. Kara smiled down at her indulgently and looked back up to Markus.

“I know this must be a lot to take in, I didn’t believe any of it at first either” She told him.

Connor, sitting ridgid on the smaller of the two couches on Markus’ right, cleared his throat. “We’re willing to leave and give you a minute if you need it?”

The older man thought about it, clicking his tongue, and bicoloured eyes flicked back and forth between the two focal points of the room. He pointed at Connor then. “Vampire?”

Alice giggled.

The man in question closed his eyes and inclined his head in something like a long suffering gesture. They had been over this a few times, and he didn’t understand why it was so difficult for Markus to grasp. Connor had never had to explain it to anyone before, all the supernatural beings he had met before now had known what they were and where they stood in the grand scheme of things: encountering someone with zero knowledge of the supernatural underbelly of the planet was uncharted territory.

“Yes. I am a vampire, they are werewolves- and I do hope you know you’re a ghost?” Connor said, tone a touch cheeky at the end. Markus’ eyebrows rose at it, his lips quirking easily into a smile, and he laughed.

A soft, deep laugh, nothing like Alice’s tinkering or Kara’s bubbling laugh. It seeped into Connor’s skin: prickling pleasantly.

How _odd_.

“Yeah, yeah, I worked that one out pretty fast” Markus wiped a hand down his face, thinking and then scoffed with a head shake. “Wow. This is real? This is really what the world is… all those kid’s stories and horror movies and it’s all real?”

Connor took a breath to pick at that statement, ever a stickler for details, but Kara smoothly interrupted with a quick silencing glance in Connor’s direction.

“Most of it yes. And it’s because we’re those things that we can see you” She took a deep breath, content. “Some Humans can hear you, they’re called psychics and from what I know the genuine ones are pretty rare, but they can’t see you”

“Not unless you personally have the strength to show yourself” Connor intoned quickly, earning himself a conceding head tilt from Kara.

The ghost nodded sagely like that made perfect sense.

“You know I tried helping them” Markus said after a long, surprisingly comfortable silence. Alice’s eyelids were growing heavy under Kara’s ministrations despite it still only being late afternoon: Kara made a mental note to put something on for them all to eat. “All the previous tenants. I just wanted some normalcy given…”

He gestured helplessly.

“Given everything that was happening. When I was alive all the housework and stuff fell to me, so I just you know…”

“Carried on?” Connor guessed, sighing when Markus nodded. “I take it the Humans didn’t like that?”

Kara tried to imagine it and winced in sympathy.

“Ah, no. No they hated it. It terrified all of them even though all I was doing was putting their shopping away for them, or washing the dishes” Green and blue eyes widened for emphasis and once again Alice chortled.

Her mother patted her on the stomach then, signifying for her to get up. “Speaking of housework. I’m going to put the pizza on, I can hear this one’s stomach growing so loud I’m surprised the neighbours can’t hear it”

Alice grinned innocently up at her.

Noticing Connor had straightened up at the mention of pizza, Markus frowned looking from his hopeful expression to Kara shuffling through the room and off into the kitchen.

Seeing his look, Connor gave a stunted smile. “I love pizza”

“I love pizza more!” Alice piped up before Markus could voice his puzzlement.

With mock shock, Connor put a hand over his heart. “Do not”

“Do too!”

“Impossible”

From the kitchen Markus heard Kara laughing, the antics of her companions filtering through the once deathly silent house. It takes Markus off guard for a second, the emotions it bubbles to the surface, and he revelled in the feeling of warmth and life these strangers have brought with them in only a few hours after so long spent alone and unintentionally frightening people.

And then he can’t help it anymore, curiosity burning in him.

“You eat pizza?” Markus blurted out, cutting off Alice’s fifth exclamation of ‘do too!’.

Connor blinked owlishly at him. Utterly shocked by the question.

“Yes?” Connor dragged out.

He looked over at Alice, who seemed as stumped as he did.

All three jumped when Kara’s voice chimed in, and they turned to see her leaning against the kitchen door frame with a pizza tray in hand ready to go in the oven. Her attention is fixed on Markus, and she gave him a knowing look.  “I know right. Vampires can eat stuff other than blood? Huh. That one took me a while to get too- I kept making food for just Alice and I, and forgetting Connor had the munchies too”

Realisation washed over Connor’s face at Kara’s words but he didn’t get the chance to thank her as she disappeared back into the kitchen far from sight.

The vampire awkwardly nodded to Markus. “Ah yes, I do still consume Human food. I’m currently not… partaking in blood”

Markus’ jaw worked for a moment, processing that, and he let out a small ‘huh’. “A vegetarian vampire”

“Given the context, more like vegan vampire” Connor corrected with an impish smile that contrasted the vibe Markus had gotten off him since first meeting the vampire. “No animal blood here either. Disgusting stuff- Ms. Meyer got that very wrong”

Markus rolled his eyes, nodding and clicking his tongue once more.

Apparently having decided their talk was over, Connor’s attention swiftly turned back to Alice and as if it had never been interrupted, to Markus’ bemusement the pair launched into their back and forth: Alice with a bright smile and Connor with a disarmingly serious disposition given how silly their ‘argument’ was.

In the kitchen, Kara nearly dropped the glass of juice she was about to drink with a yelp when Markus popped into existence right beside her.

He winced, instantly apologetic. “Oh god, sorry. Sorry. I’m not used to being able to see me do that, I didn’t think-”

Kara waved him off. “No, no, honey it’s fine. Maybe try not to make a habit of it if you can, especially with Connor. He can be… a little jumpy”

She said it with a deeper tone, giving him a look he can’t decipher.

“Alice on the other hand would probably love it. I can already think of a few games that trick could turn into” Kara continued, giving him a warm smile just before taking a long sip of her drink.

They stand for a while, comfortable in their silence and the backdrop of Connor and Alice’s miraculously still doing declarations that they each loved pizza more than the other, waiting for the ticking egg on the counter to time out. Eventually the living room debate drifted into something else, Markus pays them no attention, and his curiosity once again gets the better of him.

“Kara?”

“Hm?”

“How did you meet Connor? Is he… is he Alice’s-”

Kara’s polite ‘I’m listening’ face warped into a look of horror. “Oh no! No, he’s not Alice’s father. As far as the world is concerned, Connor and I are siblings. No. God no”

Her smile was wide and deeply amused by the notion, but she was so nice about it Markus couldn’t find it in him to be embarrassed.

“As far as the world knows?”

The werewolf nodded, putting down her finished drink into the sink. “Well yes, we’re not actually siblings of course: I’m only 30 and Connor is…” She paused, blinking and staring at nothing in particular. “I have no idea. You can never tell age with vampires. Anyway, yeah. We decided we’d go with siblings because we didn’t want to present as a couple: sure occasionally Connor will pose as Alice’s father but otherwise it’s all platonic here”

Markus laughed, gentle and understanding. “Of course, of course”

An expression passed over Kara’s face then, a look of melancholy that pranged a deep empathetic part of Markus. He felt like he knew the feelings swirling around inside her despite having only just met her: he’d always been a people person in life, and that fact still stood in death it seemed. There was someone Kara missed, so achingly and so deeply it haunted her, and Markus knew the feeling. Although he had a suspicion her’s was of a romantic nature, given the topic of their discussion that brought up that look on her fae features, but before he could carefully ask- or at least allude to- the egg timer buzzed and rattled on the table.  


A chorus of cheers, one young and delighted and the other stiff and humorously empty, sounded from the living room. Markus got the impression from Connor that all his deadpan delivery was just down to not emoting well and not from a place of cruel sarcasm: he knew the difference acutely.

Knocked from her trance, Kara pushed off the counter and grabbed a kitchen towel as she went. When she opened the oven door Markus still expected to smell the dough, cheese and sting of pepperoni, and sighed to himself when once again he could not.

“Can we eat on the couch?” Alice asked, sliding into the kitchen on her socks. She came to a halt just before Markus, her head angling up to give him a small smile, and it marked a refreshing change for Markus not to have someone float right through him. The sensation was horrible, like nausea without relief.

Behind her Connor padded in and began opening and closing cupboards looking for something.

“No” Kara and Connor chorus, just as Markus’ lips parted to tell Alice the same.

 _Hm._ Markus hummed to himself, fighting down the grin threatening to spread over his face as he tapped Connor’s shoulder and showed him where the plates were kept. The same plates he had eaten off of in life, the house fully furnished right down to cutlery and cups, and all put back into the same cupboards he knew them to be in: rearranged from where the previous tenants had put everything into the wrong places.

Connor murmured a thank you and set out four plates.

It took Markus a whole three minutes in total and the trio of them staring at him patiently to realise they wanted him to sit at the fourth chair with them. Even though he couldn’t eat, there was a plate and some cutlery out…

His voice cracked uselessly as he struggled to find the right words, and when Alice leaned over to pat the chair Markus gave up and did as he was told: an overdressed man, head to toe in winter outdoor wear, slid down into the seat.

They didn’t seem to mind him watching them eat either.

Although he was dead and his body had long since been buried and mourned for, Markus’ chest hitched as he took in a breath: heterochromatic eyes drifting from Kara, folding her pizza over crust out and lifting it to her mouth, to Connor, carefully cutting his slice into morsels, and finally to Alice who’s cheeks were smeared with tomato sauce and a dribble of hot cheese hanging off her chin.

For the first time in over a year, Markus’ house felt like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh . my . GOD i did not expect this much attention!! I'm overwhelmed and emotional, I'm so happy!!!!!!!!  
> I love you guys so much and I'm so excited to see what you all think of the coming chapters
> 
> This one is a little shorter than the first one, sorry for that, but the next chapter will be longer and go into more depth I promise!


	3. Remarkable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: graphic descriptions of injuries, intensely upsetting imagery, general scenes of war in the first scenes. the reality of war basically.

                                                                                                                             Then

* * *

The rain seemed to never end, soaking through clothes and bringing with it a cold that seemed to freeze his bones. Hot breath caught in the crisp air as Connor waded through thick, clinging mud up to his knees- squelching and popping with each laboured step- and kept his dark eyes squinted as he tried to see through the gloom of dusk and sleeting rain. 

At least he thought it was dusk. There was no way to tell whether the time of day. Not when there was a perpetual wash of smoke clogging the sky above, layered over the grey overcast of rain clouds. The flashes of occasional light weren’t lightning however, he knew they weren’t. The colour was too angry, too red and yellow.

The rope hauled over his shoulder was rubbing a welt into his sodden skin, stinging to his attention despite more pressing wounds sluggishly bleeding from his wrapped up forearm, and his hands burned from gripping it so tight. The thick twisted life line swung loose down to his hips in front, and behind him it was strained tight and straight: groaning at the tension of Connor’s pulls and the weight of three grievously injured men piled on a board sledding atop the sticky mud, the rope haphazardly wrapped around to keep them on. Blood seeped through the cracks of Connor’s white knuckles as he held on ever tighter, ignoring the screaming cramp within them, and he flicked his head to the side to try and move the soaked hair dropping into his eyes from the downpour.

It didn’t work, his hair slapped his face and clung in his line of vision even more, so the soldier grit his teeth and powered on. He stumbled, sinking down to his waist and spluttering from the brown water that sloshed up into his mouth, and for a heart beat- a shock of terror and a stab of pain- he thought he couldn’t fight against the suction of the Earth gluing him down into the mud. His body thrashed, wiggling and inching up through the dark clay-like cage, an action he was becoming accustomed to making in desperation and hollow determination. Deep below he could feel his left foot sliding out of his boot, the mud claiming it for its own as Connor finally wrenched his leg up into standing once more. He was now completely bare foot through the stodge, one sock half on and rapidly being yanked off, having lost his other shoe three stumbles back.

Droplets of water flicked around his eyesight when Connor looked back to check his load. In the blurring rain he couldn’t see their faces nor whether their chests rose with breath and with a crackling, roaring shout Connor heaved again: lugging both himself and them another inch further to potential safety. He had no idea where he was going, if he was going in the right direction, but he couldn’t stop. Wouldn’t stop. Stopping meant dying, not just himself but the others too and the thought of that fuelled the blind adrenaline and shock coursing through Connor’s brain.

Another step more. One more step. Move it Connor, one more step. Push through the mud. Get these men to safety.

After another eternity of the same mantra, forward forever forward, he cried out in relief when his foot landed on a harder surface, higher up than the slippery path he’d been taking. It scraped his bare skin and tore cuts into his foot but Connor didn’t care, instead he eagerly braced his weight onto it and let out a long whine as his body popped free of the mud and he stumbled along a blissfully solid run of pathway. It went higher and higher, the rope cutting his shoulder as gravity joined mud in a tug of war with Connor for the men on the makeshift sled.

In the blur of rain, aching darkness and locks plastered in front of his eyes, Connor didn’t see the owners of hands that suddenly joined his own. His knees gave out in relief as the crushing weight he’d been bearing lifted, leaving him kneeling in the middle of nowhere: a nowhere he deliriously hoped was some semblance of safety. His hands were agonised by the movement of releasing the rope as faceless people around him relinquished his burden from him.

Connor gasped and looked up, jumping when a cool hand cupped his face and roughly wiped hair and mud from his eyes.

Doe brown eyes met cool greys. Unfamiliar but so, so breathtaking in Connor’s choking relief to finally see another person.

“Where have you come from?” The stranger asked, gripping Connor’s chin to stop him from slumping. Rain dripped in Connor’s eyes as he processed the question.

In his exhaustion he never registered that the man’s accent was wrong.

“The town” Connor rasped. The town, the town, the town. The town now levelled and destroyed by war. 

There are other people around them, moving the sled of injured soldiers and talking to each other in a language Connor couldn’t pinpoint in his muddled state. He just wanted to sleep… just sleep.

“You carried them all that way?” The voice with the wrong accent sounded surprised.

Connor tried to answer, tried to say yes he had, but instead of words out retches bile and swallowed mud from the many times his face had been squashed into the ground. He breathed easier from it, fresh air no longer gurgling painfully in his chest, and a rough hand once again wiped his face.

Cool grey eyes aren’t disgusted by the man, caked in blood and mud, dead on his feet and dribbling from his mouth lax with exhaustion. They are bright with wonder. Bright with a kind of lust not found in the gaze of regular men.

“My, my, aren’t you remarkable…”

 

* * *

                                                                                                                             Now

* * *

Their first night in the house, Markus was ashamed to admit he might have watched them sleep. He’d briefly looked at other tenants in the early days when the house was first rented out of curiosity but after realising it was creepy Markus had always made a point of not looming over the beds of strangers: even if they couldn’t see him.

These people on the other hand, these strangers,  _ could  _ see him and he found himself unable to move away from Alice’s bedside. The little girl was curled up with Kara, balled up tiny and delicate, and her mother’s arms protectively held her close as the two werewolves slept- unaware of their watcher. Kara had claimed another room but since it was the first night it made sense to Markus that the pair would choose to bunk together: knowing children he expected they’d probably do the same for a few more nights until Alice settled. He hoped they settled too, these people more than any of the previous ones, and the thought that they might decide to leave struck something deep inside Markus’ heart.

Not that in life he had ever thought about it but Markus had been surprised the first time he noticed himself crying. It seemed odd that ghosts could weep. In life he had been an emotional person, passionate and not afraid of expressing himself in a way that warmed people to him: he’d been charismatic and welcoming, and upon reflection it made some sense that translated into death. And in death Markus had cried perhaps more than he ever had while alive.

The first was when he realised no one could see, hear or feel him- as though he didn’t exist- and the countless times after revolved around the peculiar notion of being able to grieve oneself and foolishly growing attached to strangers who seemed nothing but frightened of his attempts to communicate and help out. Every time they left him he’d found himself in tears.

From regular people interested in the bargain of such a grand house for a steal of a rent, to ghost hunters and fanatics who turned out to be all bark and no bite when ‘the spirit residing in this house’ turned out to be all too real and willing to communicate with their silly spirit boxes and motion detectors- They all hurt. Remembering them and imagining his three new tenants bailing the same way coiled up emotions in the ghost, thrashing against whatever ether made up Markus’ new form and seemed to burn inside so loud he had to wonder how the two sleeping girls couldn’t hear it…

The bedside lamp flickered before eventually lighting on, and Markus blinked out of his trance.

With one hand he wiped away his tears and with the other he leaned down to flick the light off before Kara’s frown stirred into anything closer to waking up. Blue and green eyes watched the woman, frozen and breath he didn’t have held, snuffled in her sleep but thankfully did not wake: opting in her slumber instead to tighten her embrace around Alice and dip her nose into the child’s wildly loose hair.

Needlessly, Markus breathed out in relief.

He cast one last glare at the lamp as though it was it’s fault for almost giving away his night time creeping and not his own raging emotions, before teleporting out of the room.

In contrast to startling Kara hours before it’s Markus who yelps in surprise when he instantaneously lands in the living room inches from Connor’s face. Practically nose to nose his dual coloured eyes widened comically and the ghost lurched back away from comparatively calm brown eyes, and even though Markus is almost certain it’s not possible for him to trip up unless he’s doing it on purpose: the vampire reached out to grab a fist full of Markus’ coat to steady him from tumbling over the coffee table.

“Jesus” Markus slapped a hand over where his heart used to be. His shock bled away into a bright smile that seemed to perturb Connor almost as much as his sudden appearance in the room. Doe eyes blinked at him, momentarily taken back by how  _ vibrant  _ Markus’ little laugh is. “Scared the life outta me”

Connor’s jaw worked and then released Markus’ coat, his hand making an odd aborted movement as the vampire seemed to struggle to think of what to do. It dropped down to his side eventually and his head quirked to one side. “But you’re already-”

“Joking” The ghost snorted, waving Connor off. He’d appeared precariously close to people before, since he was only able to see where he wanted to go and not what was going on there or where in the room he’d land, but never so close and it struck him as typical that he would accidentally land on top of the first person he’d met who could see him do so. Dropping onto the couch Connor had seconds before been able to sit down on, Markus motioned to the other. “Why are you still up? Is that a vampire thing or…?”

“I couldn’t sleep” Connor replied quickly, shooting Markus a rare smirk and extinguishing wild fantasy theories spinning in the other man’s head. Neatly he sat down beside Markus, notably a distance away, but Markus wasn’t offended: even though he was fine with casual contact he knew not everyone liked their bubble being breached. “My shift starts in a little over an hour and a half, taking into account commuting times, so I didn’t see the point in trying anymore”

Markus glanced at an achingly familiar ornate clock on the wall, built into the very structure of the wall and designed as an ornate piece of the decor, and saw that it was twelve past four. 

“Where do you work?” He asked, normally he would have appended the question with the assurance that Connor didn’t have to answer if he didn’t want to, but after so long alone Markus found himself hungry for contact: starving for communication. 

The rosy cheeked vampire- that detail amused Markus, remembering various fictions and common beliefs that vampires were perpetually pale- didn’t seem to mind the run of questioning and answered with ease. “Detroit police department, I’m an officer there”

He seemed to preen with pride. It was oddly endearing.

Markus hummed politely. “Is that any good?”

“Things seem to be going well thus far” Connor noted, but a frown passed his face for a moment. “Although I’m the newest recruit which means they’ve all taken to calling me ‘kid’ instead of my name: particularly the Lieutenant I’ve been working with, I’ve told him my name many times but it’s just no use”

“Kid?” Two eyebrows rose. An echo of Kara stopping dead in her tracks thinking of how old the baby faced man  _ could  _ possibly me floated into Markus’ minds eye.

Connor returned the look. “Yes.  _ Kid _ ”

After a moment letting that sink in the ghost snorted loudly, his head dropping back onto the couch as he stifled a laugh: cautious of not waking up the duo upstairs. Out the corner of his eye Markus could see Connor give a small, barely there chuckle too and finally eased out of his tense pose on the couch, opting to lean back as Markus had to stare at the ceiling.

For a while they just sat there listening to the tick of the clock and the occasional sound of a car driving past. In the dead of winter it was still dark outside even as the world came close to waking up.

They must have made an odd pair, Markus thought. Connor in his baby blue pajamas and bare feet, and Markus in his outdoor wear and heavy boots.

“It’s so weird” 

Connor turned his head. “What is?”

“Until this afternoon when you guys arrived I never gave werewolves and vampires any thought, didn’t think they existed and a year ago I thought ghosts were just people’s imaginations running wild in dark, abandoned buildings” Markus grinned. “It’s just… weird that people would say my entire world has been turned upside down but I’m just still sitting on a couch making small talk. That beings I thought couldn’t possibly be real are just as grounded in reality as the Humans who don’t know they exist. You guys have kids, eat pizza, go to work, wear pjs with little fish on them- it’s just so weird that something that seemed so fantastical is actually so mundane. All of us, all of this, there was such a tiny chance of any of it being real and yet it is”

The paler man made a humming sound, thoughtful. “On the contrary, there was always a very slim chance of us not existing: due to the fact so many cultures across the world, spanning thousands of years, whom have had no contact with each other all have beings accurate to what we are within them. With so many corresponding descriptions it could only be concluded that we  _ are  _ real”

Markus’ eyebrows furrowed, letting out a small burst of air something like a laugh.

“That’s what you took away from my little moment of reflection? Not the existential commentary or the humbling…” He trailed off, making a face. “Stuff. Just that I was an idiot for not thinking any of us were real back then?”

Connor started. “Not an idiot, no. Perhaps not paying attention to the evidence presented but by no means an idiot”

Brown eyes went slightly cross eyed as Markus flapped a hand in the man’s face.

“No, no, no, I’m an idiot: that’s definitely what you meant” There was a massive grin on Markus’ face and the spirit was glowing: literally, his luminescence a barely there blue bloom in an otherwise yellow lamp-lit room. From what Connor knew about ghosts that was a good sign so instead of retorting he clicked his jaw shut and let himself settle, content that he hadn’t actually offended his new companion.

Markus’ finger tapped the man’s shoulder to catch his attention back.

“You mean to tell me you believed in all of this before” Before. The same as ‘back then’ it was said with an emphasis that needed no clarification.

“Yes I did” Connor answered, quick and confident. He met Markus’ sceptical gaze head on seeing nothing wrong with the statement. “As it would seem, I was right to”

Blue and green eyes narrowed. “Really? What?”

The corner of the vampire’s mouth twitched, the barest hint of a smile again. “Of course I believed, everyone did:  Ysbrydion, Cyhyraeth-”

“Gesundheit” Markus chimed in. He mimicked Connor’s curious head tilt and for a little while the pair just stared each other down, Markus trying to decide if Connor was truly being serious and if he was, trying to connect the impression he had gotten from the man to this new seemingly conflicting information, and Connor waiting for the metaphorically penny to drop in Markus’ expressive eyes.

Everyone did. Connor said it so matter of fact. The same way people said the Earth was round and the sky was blue. From whatever era Connor had been from when he was Human, the existence of vampires and ghosts and werewolves had been as staunch fact to the general populace as any science taught in schools in modern times.

Connor could see the precise moment the penny did in fact drop and Markus’ lips parted in shock.

“You’re not fucking with me?” The vampire shook his head and his new friend blinked. “Wow. Sorry, you just don’t strike me as the type to have believed in all of this before you know, you became all of this”

Something about that seemed to bother Connor, Markus noted with alarm, as the slowly melting tension in the other’s shoulders suddenly turned frigid once more. Dark curls flopped as Connor looked down at himself, once relaxed, slightly raspy and subtly accented voice snapping back to the deliberate Midwestern tones the vampire had been using before their dip into supernatural talk.

“I need to get ready for work” Connor informed him, standing up and ignoring Markus’ gaped expression. “I want to leave in good time to ensure I’m not late. It was nice talking to you, Markus”

And with that the vampire turned on his heels and all but darted from the room, leaving a thoroughly confused ghost in his wake.

Markus let out another unnecessary breath and deflated, his rising mood sinking back down to the stricken feeling he felt earlier at the thought of Kara and Alice leaving. He sifted through the sentence trying to pick out what might have and came up short.

The no longer illuminated spirit sat alone in the living room, jumping only at the sound of Connor shutting the front door as he left, until the lights were turned on by a yawning Kara who sleepily wished him good morning.

He returned the gesture mutely and in a blink, he was gone.

“Hm” Kara grumbled, rubbing her eye as she shuffled through the room to the kitchen door. “Gonna have to talk to him about that… kinda rude…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all the lovely comments!! sorry for this update being a bit late, i've been busy this week but the coming chapters will be updated with more frequency. 
> 
> sorry if markus seems a little ooc at the moment, he's still a bit intense and frazzled from finally being able to talk to people after months of being completely alone and unheard so he's a bit clingy at the moment. as time goes on he'll settle 
> 
> hope you enjoyed!


	4. Sugar

[ OOC// hey guys check this out it's Markus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpCk4-YB9WY).

 

* * *

                                                                                                                     THEN

* * *

 

Warm blue eyes watched the pair weave around each other seamlessly, working together in the wide space of the conservatory like they were born for it. When Carl first remarried he’d worried what his son would think of the breath of fresh air Johanna brought into their home: sure Carl had always tried to make Leo’s life as bright as possible but the air Johanna had brought truly was something else.

He needn’t have worried in the end. Leo had adored Johanna, bright eyes looking up at her and calling her ‘mom’ to the delight of both her and Carl. People had looked at them oddly in public when a little pale boy called the deep brown skinned woman his mother, but the love there was organic- too real and strong to be tainted by the whispers of strangers who refused to understand things beyond their white bread picket fences. And as Leo adored Johanna, he too adored the little bonny baby born a year and a half after their unconventionally colourful outdoor wedding, with picnic foods instead of gourmet three course for the reception party and the bride’s maids dressed in a different bright colour each rather than the same pastel purple gowns.

Carl vividly recalled little Leo climbing up onto the hospital bed, careful not to sit on his mama’s legs, and peer eagerly down at the squirming bundle in her tired arms. 

“This is your brother” Johanna had said, loving eyes looking from babe to boy and back again. Carl had stood back, remembering every single detail for a painting later on: the best moment of his life when Leo first met Markus.

A plump finger pointed down when the tiny baby’s eyes blinked open lazily. “He got funny eyes”

One blue, one green.

“He does, doesn’t he?” Johanna’s smile had been so beautiful.

Every day Carl wished she had lived long enough to see her boys grow up. He wished that the damn driver had been paying attention to the road. He wished to high heaven and back again that Johanna got to see her Markus take his first steps and see Leo gingerly, oh so carefully, helping his little brother make them.

He wished Johanna could see the pair of them now, lightly arguing with each other- not an ounce of heat to their words- as they disagreed on where Carl’s new storage units would go.

“If they’re over here then they’re not blocking the light” Markus reiterated for what had to be the fourth time. Carl gave a muffled chuckle at Leo’s wide gesture about the room.

“Dude, the walls are  _ glass!  _ Light comes in from everywhere it’s not gonna block shit” 

The younger Manfred pointed east. “Yeah, but dad likes to paint in the morning and the sun rise would come from over there- he can paint on this opposite wall. If we put the unit against that it’ll cast a shadow over his canvases”

Hearing his father’s escalating laughter, Leo spun on his heels to shoot him a ‘can you believe this guy?’ look.

“Come on boys, at this rate we’ll never get anything done” He wheeled his chair closer, another loss from that damn driver. Markus had asked him once not to call the man ‘damn’ anything so Carl no longer did- out loud. 

Somethings Carl just couldn’t forgive and forget.

He jabbed a thumb where Markus had wanted to put the large set of free standing shelves. “Leo, help your brother shuffle it over there neither of us will get any peace otherwise. Then you two are going to treat me to a jamming session”

Leo threw his head back and groaned, while Markus gave a small fist bump of victory. Leo took after his mother, Carl believed, less artistically inclined and more fond of practicality. Leo didn’t care what something looked like so long as it worked, while Markus had artistry in his blood just like both his parents: it meant Carl often seemed to side with Markus over Leo, a fact the old man never noticed, not without the blessing of hindsight.

As the two men moved either end of the shelving unit, blue and green eyes missed how Leo’s glare was less half-hearted this time. Missed how the elder’s tone tinged more with annoyance than fond exasperation throughout their arguing.

Missed how Leo’s grunt masked the muttering of a discontented heart.

Markus just frowned in confusion when after moving it, Leo waved a hand and pulled up an excuse that he had somewhere to be.

“Your piano playing beats mine anyway” He’d said, dipping to kiss his father goodbye on the cheek and accepting the hug Markus pulled him into: his face turned away from the other. Leo ignored Markus quip, his attempt to make his big brother smile and playfully shove his shoulder like he used to, and ignored the hurt look heterochromic eyes held as they watched him leave with the slamming of the front door.

Sure, never a day had gone by that Carl hadn’t wished Johanna had lived to see her boys grow up together and learn together. But looking back on that day in the conservatory he never realised at the time how hostile Leo had started to become in regards to Markus, and in that hindsight it marked the first time Carl had ever been thankful Johanna  _ wasn’t  _ around to witness her boys: it would have broken her heart to see how much they came to resent each other. Like a domino effect from that day on wards.

It certainly broke Carl’s heart when Leo didn’t shed a tear at Markus’ funeral; roughly six months after that stupid day with the stupid, stupid shelving unit that hadn’t seemed important at the time, but really had been the beginning of the end.

* * *

                                                                                                                           NOW

* * *

Connor always arrived early to work. 

Most seemed to think it was rookie devotion to his job but in fact it had more to do with age old routines so deeply ingrained in the vampire that nothing would ever snap him out of it. As a child he had to get up before sun rise, march down the mines with the rest of the town and keep his head ducked respectfully unless he fancied getting himself slapped upside the head for insolence. He’d been a worker since way before people deemed acceptable now, back when he relied on his ears to hear the trundle of carts and whistles of workers needing to pass through one part of the mine to the next- pulling on the string and sitting alone for hours on end just so mam could put some food on the table and da could afford some coal to heat a bath.

Each working day started before the sun did. That was how Connor lived and breathed.

It was just in Connor’s blood. Times to keep and roles to fill. He disliked feeling idle, from running around as a skinny little boy all the way into a strong lad the sweet gals of the valley would bat their eyelashes at with giggles: completely unaware that Connor’s doe eyes were only for other strong lads and not their rouged cheeks.   
  


To his surprise this time when Connor jogged up the steps of the precinct it wasn’t just the graveyard shift staff preparing for handover- this time a frustrating face grinned at him from the desk opposite.

“Morning, kiddo” Detective Reed called out, sounding unusually chipper for someone who usually only ever grumbled at Connor. “Quick, quick, gotta go fast: don’t want the chief to think you’re a second late”

He even clapped his hands as Connor marched past, mock egging on the other man.

“You shouldn’t chew your pen, Detective. You’ll get ink down your chin” Connor intoned, sliding his bag under his desk and settling in the chair. He was nowhere near late, he was as always ten minutes early. 

Reed’s grin soured but he still spat out his pen.

Not for the first time Connor glanced across and thought Gavin looked closer to the little boy’s in Alice’s class than an agent of the law.

“You gonna sit there and be a smart ass or are you going to get me a coffee, plastic prick?” The more seasoned officer snapped, switching from condescending to down right rude as smoothly as butter melted. If only Gavin were as sweet.

Lieutenant Anderson wouldn’t arrive for another hour at least, trusting he intended to arrive when his shift actually started, and would more likely roll in within the next two to three. It hadn’t escaped Connor’s notice that this seemed to annoy Reed as much as it irked him but he had never voiced the comparison: not wanting to fester any ill will towards the man Connor had taken a shine to nor form any kinship with the irritating little boy opposite him.

Connor exhaled sharply through his nose. “Two sugars?”

Gavin clicked his tongue, pleased. “You know how I like it, kid”

When Connor decided to enlist in the police academy, running high on the knowledge that he had others to provide for now and a renewed sense of purpose, he had imagined a welcome return to the strict regimes and patrols he was accustomed to before… well,  _ before-  _ but instead of the rambunctious yet respectful comradery he’d known, Connor had found since completing the academy and being stationed in Detroit Police Department that people’s idea of discipline was not what it once was. Sure, he’d dealt with harsher men than Gavin before but there was something infinitely more grating about bullying coming from the mouth of someone so soft Connor could envision him squealing and running for the hills the second the world got gritter than his pretty 21st century, wealthy American upbringing had previously dealt him. The vampire found he’d rather be insulted by a man he’d witnessed haul a brother in arms through no man’s land into the trenches than insulted continuously by a man who again and again got away with using Connor as a dog’s body just because Fowler had more pressing concerns that a few playpen quips. 

Some might say why didn’t Connor snap back at Gavin, give back as good as he got: after all he was the elder of the two, despite what the Human believed, and Connor knew more about violence and justice than Gavin ever would… But just as rising early was in his blood, so was dipping his head to superiors and respecting their wishes, no matter how rude they seemed. 

So far Lieutenant Anderson hadn’t been much help either, outside of telling Reed to ‘shut his goddamn trap’ every now and again, but Connor was starting to think he was getting through to the man. Just the other day he’d caught Hank flipping Gavin off when the man had shoved Connor’s shoulder none too lightly after a debrief in Fowler’s office: progress that had the vampire preening in the hours since… until Hank grumbled at him to wipe that dorky smile off his face, it was creeping him out.

After checking emails and discerning that nothing new had cropped up overnight, Connor locked his screen and pushed away from his desk.

Two sugars. Oh boy did he silently wish he could dump a heap of salt in instead. Or simply tip the coffee over Gavin’s head.   
  


* * *

  
  


Kara didn’t see her unexpected housemate again until she got back from dropping Alice off at school. Alice had begged to stay home but Monday morning was Monday morning, and the little girl still had to go to school regardless of having moved house the day before. 

She came in through the front door, shrugged off her coat and after a moment’s thought toed off her snowy shoes, and took a moment to bask in the grandeur of the house. It was beautiful, so full of life and character, and it made Kara wish she could meet whoever decorated: everything was so different from the sullen apartment the trio had been crammed in on the other side of town. To find somewhere affordable and so close to Alice’s school, and to top it off so stunning and pleasant to be in was nothing short of a miracle to Kara.

Finishing her moment of appreciation with a content sigh, Kara cleared her throat and called out into the empty house. “Markus? You there?”

She hoped he was, she didn’t know as much about spirits as Connor did, as the idea of floating around the house with only herself for company until it was time to retrieve Alice and Connor’s shift ended wasn’t appealing. It wasn’t as if they had anything more to unpack either, bringing to the house only a small bag of food, and a bag of clothes each that had already been sorted into drawers the evening before, and there didn’t seem to be any housework needing to be done yet as her new landlord had a maid come in while the house was empty to maintain it. She likely wouldn’t find dust or spills if she searched all day for them.

Kara felt… redundant? No. Just restless for something to do, that was it.

The wolf was about to give up on Markus and head straight back out to do grocery shopping, when the door to leading to a cupboard under the stairs creaked open and the man stepped through smiling at her. Having checked in there during her explorations the day before Kara knew the room he’d walked out of could barely be called one- a tight space only big enough to fit a vacuum cleaner and a shelving of dusters and sprays. He probably only fit because his incorporeal form glided  _ through  _ the clutter within.

“What were you doing in there?” She asked, eyes teasing as she returned the smile. Markus made a show of swinging into the room sparking a giggle from her, and he bumped the cupboard door shut with his hip. 

Markus shrugged. “Oh you know, stuff”

Kara made a ‘huh’ sound. “Oh yeah?”

“Yep” The ghost’s grinned widened. 

Moving away from him and towards the living room, Kara called over her shoulder. “Well I thank you for not just popping up again”

She didn’t jump when he did just that, appearing next to her, because she had fully expected him to do so and indulged his mischievous sparkle with a shake of her head. 

“You’re welcome” Markus ironically said with a head bob. 

“You’re not the only one with little habits” Kara said, dipping to pick up a mug left on the table that morning. “Connor used to stare, just stare, for ages. He doesn’t do it so much anymore but back when we first met I had to tell him not to at least once a day”

The ghost thought back to how he’d watched the woman sleep a few hours prior and pursed his lips, his cheeks flushing despite having no blood nor body to fill them.

“I think it must be a sign of respect with vampires. Intense eye contact at all times” She carried on talking, finding it easy with the new friend. Easier than talking to Connor had ever been: despite their efforts to blend better together, their past still harrowed them both and turned their chats awkward. “Not that I’d know, Connor’s the only one I’ve ever spoken to”

She turned and shrugged a shoulder at Markus, the corner of her mouth quirked up. Her string of chatter reminded Markus of Carl when he’d visit after long periods away: eager to have his voice heard by someone who wasn’t his caretaker or the occasional nurse. 

Markus hooked on that detail. “Really, the only one? Or just the only one you’re aware you’ve spoken to?”

Kara laughed, inclining her head to Markus to concede his point. “True. Yes, he’s the only one I’ve been aware is a vampire. Who knows maybe we’ve both met vampires before and just never known: they seem like a secretive bunch if Connor’s anything to go by”

He followed her into the kitchen, large coat drifting around him like a grand cape. Once in the kitchen, Markus leaned his tall frame on the door with posture open: listening intently to Kara’s gentle monologue.

She stopped by the sink, filling it to start work on the plates from dinner the night before and the bowl from Alice’s cereal. “Alice thinks vampires must be nicer than movies and books make out- she adores Connor. I actually got called in by her teacher once because she’d got into a fight with another child over talk of monsters”

Markus’ eyebrows raised. “A fight? We’re talking about the same little girl who was too shy to talk to me directly right?”

Kara nodded. “Oh yeah, once she gets to know you that will all change. She didn’t start it of course, but she didn’t like that the boy was saying werewolves and vampires were horrible monsters”

She sighed and added soap as the sink filled, mind momentarily drifting elsewhere.

Sensing the topic had turned away from amicable and back into something that made Kara uncomfortable, Markus cleared his throat and stepped forward: plucking a towel off the side and starting to dry the plates as Kara passed them, ignoring her half-hearted complaint that he didn’t need to do that. 

As he wiped down a glass once filled to the brim with juice, courtesy of a little girl who couldn’t quite manage the big carton, Markus steered the topic. “If you don’t mind me asking, were you two born like you are… was Alice or-?”

Kara shook her head. “No, no I don’t think anyone can be born a werewolf. It’s acquired, just like vampires and ghosts: we all started off Human. Maybe that’s why we’re all trying so hard to be Human all over again”

The man nodded quietly.

“Being Human is the goal, huh?” He asked her, a muted smile on his face.

Kara handed him a plate mulling it over.

“Yeah I’d say that’s the goal. As Human as we can be: Alice deserves that”

“So do you” Markus countered.

Her head dipped down and for a split second Markus feared he’d messed up with her too. He thought that maybe he’d said the wrong thing one too many times and despite the rash conclusion, how ridiculous he knew he was for thinking it, a long time alone led to a degree of desperation and hysteria.

But then Kara nodded to herself, looking up at Markus with misty eyes.

“Yeah. I do too” She said it like it wasn’t something she had ever considered before.

Like she thought she didn’t deserve a chance at normalcy again.

Even though he’d known her less than twenty-four hours in total and even though her hands were wet with soap water and he had no body heat to warm their embrace: Markus closed in and wrapped his arms around her, smiling into her hair at the sound of her wet chuckle.

“You’re a tactile guy, aren’t you?”

“Hm-hm” Markus hummed in agreement, noting that Kara didn’t pull away: and instead slipped her arms around his waist.

Kara had never had siblings, she’d never had the pleasure of knowing what it felt like to receive a platonic hug from a man other than Luther: she’d only been subjected to grabbing hands and grinding hips. Hugging Markus was nothing like hugging Luther too, who’d held her like she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen with a tight desperation of impending separation. Hugging Luther had been like melting into safety but knowing in her peripherals that the world was anything but: it had made her heart race but not because of the usual thunder of fear. Hugging Markus was like a hearty hello: a hey, how are you? A good morning, and a good night. A hug without expectation: giving nothing but comfort, and taking nothing but pleasant company in return.

And he let go the moment she moved away. Not a hint of lust or want. Just a pleasant upturn of his lips coupled with a casual air that told her this was nothing new to him: Markus was just the kind of guy who liked to give hugs no matter who you were.

It was… it was _nice_.

She could get used to him being around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's a plot brewing here, I promise. even though this seems like nonsense filler at the moment, stuff i'm not convinced makes sense but i hope you guys like! i hate doing set up but it's gotta be done... can't just swan dive straight into the action no matter how hilariously out of context it would be.
> 
> if anyone can guess what era (and country) connor is originally from let me know in the comments, there's no prize except me grinning at the computer screen like the dumb ass i am.
> 
> markus' mother's name comes from jesse's own mother, johanna. i couldn't think of another name to use.
> 
> also considering that in one scenario alice shoots todd's scummy ass, that little girl has a lot more guts than the game first portrays and i'm willing to bet she'd throw down for her mama if some little shit started talking trash about the supernatural. coming from a formerly shy little girl with a fight-me-bitch mentality buried underneath a quiet voice, i see you alice, i SEE you. (plus i hate that alice mostly just cried for kara throughout the game, little babe had far more to give i tell you).


	5. I Miss You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> disclaimer: i have no idea how crime scenes work or what the procedure is...

THEN

* * *

The blanket dropped around shivering shoulders was mottled with holes, but it was still warm, still loved. The hands that smooth it down over Kara and comb through her hair are gentle and motherly, and it took all of her self control not to turn into Rose’s warmth and hide her face away from the world like Alice liked to do to her.

It would be okay to break down now, Kara thought for a second. Alice was asleep and there was no one else around except for Rose.

But she can’t and Rose’s sorrowful face as she dropped down to sit beside Kara told her so.

“I talked to the others” Rose began, and then trailed off. Briefly the older woman closed her eyes: aching to give good news but knowing there was none to give. “The description you gave they recognised”

Kara figured as much. She remembered the fear, the choking fear that urged her on: pulling Alice along and begging the girl to run faster, she knew her little legs hurt Kara was so sorry, but they had to run faster.

The arm that wrapped around her shoulder and pulled her into a side hug wasn’t werewolf, it was Human, not like the other werewolves hiding out in the next room just as eager as Kara to escape quiet pursuers. Rose, and her son, were the first Humans Kara had ever met who knew about the supernatural world without being a part of it in any way: Rose was no psychic nor hunter. Just a woman who had found out there were people suffering from a disease they couldn’t help and being hunted by foes they couldn’t fight, and decided she would do anything in her power to help.

From the looks Adam had shot her way when she arrived with Alice and Luther, Kara knew Rose was one of a kind.

Luther hadn’t known who Kara spoke of when she had let the floodgates open one night, when Alice was sleeping and a quadruplet of peculiar ghosts who died under joint circumstances Kara didn’t want to dwell on had overwhelmed the trio with invitations to play on all the rides in the abandoned park. He hadn’t been able to empathise with the raw terror of being hunted by the  _ thing  _ that traced Kara and Alice’s steps but he had understood the depth of their heart pounding need to escape it.

He had his demons, Kara knew he did, and they were as unknown to her as her own were to him. But they understood each other: found kinship in their nightmares.

“They’re leaving tonight” Rose finally said and Kara closed her eyes to hide the emotion swelling behind them. “They’re afraid being close to you will…”

“Will bring it down on them too” Kara finished for her and the Human woman sighed. World weary and wishing she could magic all this away.

She can hear crickets rubbing their legs together in the long grass beyond where they sat on the wooden porch, two figures overlooking miles of fields at night and illuminated only by the lamp from the landing behind them. It shone through the glass on the front door window, casting a wash of shattered light over their backs and dancing across their glossy cheeks like fairy lights pegged up the walls of a little girl’s room. It was a cold night in more than just the chill in the air, the oncoming winter, and it seeped it’s way into Kara’s heart and ate away at the spark of hope she’d felt first hearing of the Chapmans.

“They say it’s an abomination” Rose continued, her brow furrowed and tried to fathom the creature her other lodgers had described. “Some kind of beast beyond anything they’ve seen before, and once it catches your scent you’re marked for life”

The small werewolf tilted her head. “It doesn’t seem like it though, doesn’t look like it… to look at it you’d think it was just…”

“An angel?” Rose suggested and Kara mulled the description over for a moment, and then nodded. “Well my daddy used to say the Devil was pretty, the most beautiful of all God’s angels before he fell. Just because something looks kind doesn’t mean it is”

Kara snorted. “This thing doesn’t come close to kind”

“They said much the same” Rose thought back to the way her guest’s eyes had dilated in fear the moment she passed on Kara’s description to them. 

It will hunt them down to the ends of the Earth. Hunt them down until they can’t run anymore and drag their souls into hell. 

Words Rose wasn’t about to repeat to the little one beside her.

“I’m not afraid” The woman declared then, catching Kara off guard. “That demon could be the worst thing to ever walk the Earth, but I am not afraid of it. Not when good people like you and little Alice need saving from it”

She put a hand on the back of Kara’s head, and tilted the younger so her temple met Rose’s soft lips in a motherly kiss. 

“They’re leaving as soon as they can, but I want you to know that you, Alice and Luther are all welcome for as long as you need”

Kara swallowed a sob. “What if it comes?”

“Then it comes, child. Then it comes. But I will not throw you out”

Maybe she’d stay for a few days longer. Maybe she’d let Alice settle and learn what a home felt like again, just for a little while. Maybe she’d enjoy the way Luther looked at her a little longer before she packed up and left them all for good: for their own safety. Rose may claim she wasn’t afraid, and Luther may want to stay by her side no matter what, Kara wasn’t about to risk the  _ thing  _ chasing them catching his scent as well as her own and Alice’s: and she certainly wasn’t going to wait and find out what  _ it  _ did to Humans in its way. 

She and Alice would leave in three days, Kara decided as she leaned into Rose’s arms and watched her breath cloud in the rapidly cooling air.

She and Alice cross the border into Canada before Luther and the rest woke, and they would never see them again: never endanger them again. 

But for now she would enjoy the feeling of home.

 

* * *

                                                                                                NOW

* * *

Having company like Markus was a welcome reprieve from her old life. Not that Alice and Connor weren’t lovely to live with, it was just that Alice was a child and Connor was… Connor. There was an aspect of him that seemed to prevent him from being able to connect fully with others and although Kara had come to appreciate him it did make her uncomfortable after too long. Alice seemed immune to Connor’s awkward air but Kara was not so lucky.

Markus on the other hand had been telling her an animated tale of his old friend John for the last ten or so minutes as she compiled a list of things to buy at the store.

“And then he ends up just buying the same car anyway, after all that he goes with the ‘purple monster’ he was so adamant he wasn’t having” Markus finished off, a mystified look on his face as his anecdote came to an end. 

To prove she’d been paying attention, Kara looked up from her list with a frown. “Wait, seriously? He had you calling around all those dealerships trying to find the car he’d seen and when you did find it he… He really just went with the first one you picked?”

“Right?” Markus gestured to her. “And guess what he ended up loving that car. He called it his baby and everything”

Kara straightened up, folding the list in half and sliding it in her pocket. “Note for the future then, always listen to Markus: he knows what to do”

The ghost nodded, returning her sly smile. “Totally, my instincts have never been wrong”

She watched as his pleased expression flickered briefly to something more sullen and then finally to a self-deprecating quirk of his mouth as he gestured down at himself.

“Or at least, they’re not wrong ninety-nine point nine percent of the time”

At first Kara’s shoulders dropped and her heart felt heavy, something like grief hitting her- oh, Markus, honey- but then she noticed the daring look he was shooting her, tongue pressed into his cheek and she loudly scoffed.

He chuckled as she swatted him.

“You’ve got the same morbid humour as Connor, god help me” Kara muttered, shaking her head. “Anyway, I’ve got to do some shopping- can’t live off air unfortunately- did you want to come? I know people can’t see you but it only a few blocks down and it would be nice to have some company”

She trailed off, leaving the offer open and blinked up at Markus hopefully.

His teasing smile was gone and his eyes darted to the door with a look of longing and… was that fear?

“I… I don’t kn-”

“No, it’s fine. I’m not forcing you” The werewolf rushed to reassure him. “It was just an offer. Maybe another time?”

From what Connor had told her about the existence of ghosts was that they  _ could  _ leave the place they haunted, but the length of time and distance varied on their strength levels and age. She had figured since he was a year old… or dead… however it was worded that Markus might have wanted to.

Markus gave her a tense smile, so different from the other easy ones from their time together, and scratched the back of his neck nervously. “Ugh yeah, one day but not… not today thanks. Have fun though and I’ll ugh- I’ll be hanging out here”

She felt awful for it, wanting now to stay instead, but she really needed to get some more food, and the thought of staying how felt as awkward as sitting with Connor usually felt. It made her miss the one person she’d never had an awkward moment with, someone she’d seamlessly fit with like they were made for one another… 

“Okay” Kara nodded, backing out into the hallway to reach her coat and shoes. “I’ll see you later”

“See you” Markus called as she closed the door. 

Once her shadow disappeared from the crystal frosted front windows of the door, Markus blinked himself from the living room and into the conservatory. A room now unpleasantly barren and empty as tenants past and current hadn’t known what to use it for.

He reached out and touched the only brick wall the glass room had and his finger smoothed over a dent drilled into it: old fastenings to keep Carl’s shelving from falling on him or tipping forward. Flecks of half washed off paint and other tiny memories of life peppered the walls and Markus let out a long sigh- leaning forward to rest his forehead on the wall.

“I miss you, dad”

 

* * *

  
  


Lieutenant Anderson never made into the precinct within the two to three hour time frame Connor had estimated and that was put down to a poor, random member of the public calling in a dead body. The detective had headed straight there rather than stopping off for an update, and Connor breathed a sigh of relief he was one of the officers stationed to secure and close off the area as part of the first response.

Otherwise he’d have been either doing general patrols or at Detective Reed’s disposal.

By the time Hank pulled up at the crime scene, a simple family home complete with a set of swings outside, Connor was already outside standing guard by the tape with a fellow officer. The heavy scent of blood was pouring out onto the street, flooding Connor’s nose, and it was tainted with something he couldn’t immediately place: but it wasn’t his place to go inside, he wasn’t a detective… yet.

Connor hooked the tape under his finger and lifted it for Hank before the man could, earning himself a cocked eyebrow of surprise. For a second Anderson looked like he wanting to say something to the vampire, but instead made a vague grumbled sound and ducked under the tape. He listened as Hank’s steps crunched up the pathway and disappeared into the house but didn’t turn to look, keeping his eyes forward at the snowy surroundings ready to usher away any civilians lingering for too long or trying to access the crime scene beyond.

Half an hour after Hank went inside, and an hour since Connor had been stationed outside the crime scene, his fellow guard started jogging on the spot. 

The vampire looked over at her. Unlike himself, stood ramrod still and unpurturbed by the crisp winter chill, Officer Rosen’s arms were bound around her chest making her puffy winter jacket emblazoned with DPD seem even puffier around her form and the ground around her feet was flattened into a sheet of ice from her small pacing. Her dark eyes caught his.

“I’m freezing” She told him, one hand lifting to push her hat down further as if it would do something to elevate the cold. “Figures something like this would happen on the coldest day of the year yet- hey maybe if we ask real nice and use your puppy eyes we can get ourselves a heater set up out here?”

Her lips quirked into a smile and Connor then realised she was kidding with him. 

Officer Rosen had been in the force for three years and to his knowledge everyone got along with her, even Reed. She took the time to greet him whenever they passed by and enjoyed chatting to him if they were ever stationed together as they were now- not seeming to mind that Connor wasn’t exactly the epitome of small talk. She had even brought Connor a muffin once, a nice one fresh from the bakery just around the corner of the precinct, back on his second day and her only explanation to him had been that all the newbies got one: something Connor wasn’t sure was entirely true but no one else new had joined since him to confirm or deny his suspicion. 

Connor smiled in return. “I think it would take more than that: we could bribe them by offering to do their paperwork”

Pleased was the only way to describe the look that passed Rosen’s face at the reply. 

“Ugh, on second thought take me now Frosty boy” Rosen mock groaned, dipping her chin down so it looked like she was a turtle hiding within its shell, and gave an exaggerated full body shiver.  

His eyebrows furrowed. “Frosty boy?”

An ugly snort came from his colleague and a dainty hand came to cover her mouth as her shoulders shook lightly. At his puzzled look, Rosen shook her head by way of apology. “Sorry, it’s just funny hearing you say ‘Frosty boy’-”

Or at least she would have said ‘Frosty boy’ again had her voice not dissolved into unintelligible hysterics. 

“Stop, stop, no, no this is a crime scene- stop laughing” Rosen ordered.

Connor surprised himself by finding that he too felt the need to strifle a rising giggle. “I’m not laughing, you are”

“I know, I know it’s so bad!” She all but shrieked at him, hand still partly covering her mouth and her eyes wide. She coughed hard, clearing her throat, and finally seemed to have regained control.

“At least the reporters haven’t got here yet” Connor commented. “Imagine those headlines: police giggling outside gruesome murder”

She squeaked. “Stop, Connor, stop!”

The smirk playing on his mouth died then hearing his name coming from Rosen. It sobered him suddenly that while she knew his name, he had no idea what her first name was: she like many others were simply their surname within the precinct. He only knew Gavin’s because Lieutenant Hank once said ‘shut your goddamn trap Gavin’, and Hank’s because of the many times Fowler had hollered it from his office along with words along the lines of ‘get your ass in here’.

It was just as well their moment had passed because it was then that Anderson marched out of the house and pulled up the tape before Connor had the chance to do it for him.

He didn’t spare either of them a second glance as he walked away and sat on the trunk of his car looking out down the street rather than the house. The pair blinked at each other, noting the Lieutenant’s behaviour as odd even for the hard boiled individual he was: never had they seen him leave so brisky, with such an air of… anger.

Corporal Noonan followed out a moment later, much slower than Anderson had, and looked at the two of them in turn: quirking his head to indicate they go inside. “The pair of you switch with Dunn and Rigby, it’s too damn cold for usual rotations: help close off the area and finish up in there”

Connor and Rosen nodded in synchronisation, ducking under the tape when Noonan flicked it up with a finger. 

“But I warn you, it’s a bad one” The old man sighed, a look in his eyes telling Connor there might be a retirement party in the office soon. 

As they walked up the path, feet crunching and the scent of blood thickening as they drew closer, officers Dunn and Rigby passed going the other way: their faces waxy and eyes haunted. Connor had known the death had been a violent one simply from the smell alone, with such a potent scent having only been caused by a copious amount of blood being drawn- and their expressions only solidified the kind of scene Connor would expect within.

The first thing Connor thought upon seeing the scene of the crime was that overall it was not as gruesome as other things he had witnessed in his years: he’d even, to his shame, inflicted worse. The body was laid in the middle of the living room floor, on her back, with all the furniture neatly shoved to the sides to make room for an elaborate interwoven circle of a white powder his nose told him was salt.

Caramel eyes flicked over the victim. Early twenties, female, east-asian with hair dyed a happy bright blue. Her arms were splayed either side of her, legs neatly lined up as if she had been deliberately laid out- within each palm was a pool of wax, but her hands were otherwise unrestrained. She seemed peaceful if it weren’t for the slice down her chest and the heavy scents hitting Connor so hard he felt his Hunger growl for the first time in months. It wasn’t just his Hunger though, the vampire realised, as his skin felt pressured since entering the room: like a physical force was pushing against him, stirring up a feeling of revulsion.

“Looks like some cult shit” He heard Rosen whisper under her breath, too quiet for the other Humans to hear. With gloves on, she started bagging up evidence and making detailed notes on each of what it contained. 

Connor turned around on his heels to gather some bags to do just the same when suddenly he lurched back as if struck in the chest. Large and offensive against the final wall, that he had his back to upon entering, was an extravagantly painted symbol from ceiling to skirting board and once facing it Connor felt the prickling on his skin escalate: his stomach churning as if he was going to be physically sick. His eyes burned as he stared at the symbol- unable to look away even as it stung like lime juice.

One of the more senior officers bagging up evidence noticed Connor and sighed, somewhere between annoyance and sympathy. “Hey, if you’re gonna puke get out of here. We don’t need that contaminating the scene”

A hand touched his arm, and Connor snapped his eyes away at last to meet Rosen’s concerned gaze.

“Connor, you can leave if it’s too much. It’s your first murder scene, no one’s gonna judge you- we’ve all been there” She told him, completely misinterpreting the cause of his heaving chest and blown pupils.

Leaving sounded fantastic. Leaving sounded like it was the only thing in the world he wanted to do. He wanted to run away from the room and perhaps even fly away across the world: the paint on the wall screamed at him ‘get out, get out, _get out’_.

Mutely he nodded to her, and walked back around the body on the floor, casting her one last glance before stepping back out into the hallway. Suddenly the pressure in his chest dropped. 

Frowning, Connor stepped back into the room. There it was again. Back and forth, Connor reversed into the room and stepped out again: marvelling at the sensation urging him to leave, and how quickly it released him once he did as it wanted.

In. Leave!

Out. Nothing...

“Fuck are you doing dancing around, kid?” A grumbling voice snapped at him, and Connor was knocked from his trance by the sight of Lieutenant Anderson scowling at him. “This is a crime scene not the damn play park: get out the way”

“Sorry, Lieutenant” Connor replied quickly. He almost told the other he had a bad feeling but caught the words at the last minute. This wasn’t Kara, this wasn’t his old superiors… Hank Anderson didn’t care for Connor’s ‘bad feelings’. The greyed Human man side stepped Connor, notably not shoving the vampire’s shoulder as Connor had seen him do to others, and reentered the living room. 

Ducking his head, Connor mulled over his findings and walked back out into the winter air.

Whatever this was it was way over Human heads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so FINALLY some plot is arriving!!! i got to explore a bit more of connor which was really fun, and in the next chapter there will be some more markus x connor interaction: a lot less awkward too than their one earlier !
> 
> and hank made an appearance, not a big one but i promise he does play into the story more later on. he doesn't think much of connor yet but he has time, just like in the game xD
> 
> as for officer rosen she was meant to be just a random oc to fill some gaps, and then i realised i had been writing their interaction for longer than i expected and boom!! rosen is here. let me know if you like her and would like to see more of her crop up in the story, i have a few ideas for her.


	6. Missing

                                                                                                                THEN

 

* * *

 

There was darkness, the kind of darkness that fell when the curtains were pulled and the lamps shut off. The kind of darkness most were accustomed to- outside always the presence of either the stars or the moon faint in the sky.

And then there was total darkness. The pitch black abyss Connor knew well from the mines. He knew the difference between above ground darkness and underground darkness: below the surface the eyes never adjusted and the silence would feel like it was closing in, pressing on his skin like a thick blanket.

He had never wanted to be trapped underground ever again. Connor had hated working in the mines operating the tunnel doors but at least back then he could hear the roll of carts and the grunts of men and women alike crawling through the veins of the Earth to bring up fuel for richer people than them to heat their homes and cook their meals. Here he knew he was being kept underground even without the echoes of workers to slide across rock. There was a kind of chill that came from being this far below ground that no handle or bundle of cloth could ease- which to his surprise he had been given. A bed with a good, sturdy metal frame and a bedding softer than anything he’d been treated to in years: it all seemed a waste to give it all to a prisoner of war.

At least that was what Connor thought he was. After he’d woken up and devoured the food left out for him the young man had realised the depth of his predicament, and had paced the room until the single candle went out and then paced some more until his bare foot smacked painfully against the bed frame. Then he’d sat on the bed and stared at where he thought the door might have been and waited… for hours. Perhaps days?

Prisoners of war did not get nice beds, they didn’t get warm porridge left out for them and a jug of clean water and they certainly weren’t redressed in silken robes. But what else could he be? 

Maybe his superiors would try and rescue him? Pah, not likely. If his brothers in arms were still alive, wherever they were kept, there was a chance but if it truly was just Connor now he knew he would die in the cell.

Even though he wants to maintain an air of sturdy indifference, Connor can’t help but perk up when a light shines underneath the door cutting through the oppressive darkness he’d been plunged into for hours on end. His body feels tense and colder than before, a different kind of shivering quaking his hands and shoulders, as steps draw nearer.

The door swings open and Connor frowns.

Instead of a heavy set soldier in unfamiliar uniforms, face grimy and perhaps with some kind of weapon to threaten Connor with: there is instead a young woman. The lamp she holds illuminates her face softly: highlighting a pretty round face and a button nose.

She’s small. Harmless looking. 

“Sorry for leaving you in the dark, I wasn’t informed your candle had gone out” She tells him, and Connor flinches at the sound of her voice. It’s too loud after so long alone in silence. The blonde woman seems angry but not at him and it’s all too confusing for Connor to handle. “Please, accept this lamp along with my sincerest apologies”

He jerks back when she comes closer, but the woman doesn’t seem to notice as she puts the lamp down on the floor by his foot. Blue eyes catch his gaze with a gentleness Connor had not been prepared for: he’d been bracing himself for what felt like eons for torture and instead he’s faced with kindness. 

“It won’t be long now” She tells him, as if he knows what she’s talking about. “Soon master will be seeing to you and I’m certain he will let you walk in the light again”

She talks strangely, in an accent and in a way Connor can’t recognise. 

Connor doesn’t take his eyes off her when she pats his knee and turns to leave. It occurs to him then that he could have fought her, wrestled her and made his escape- but his body wouldn’t move. Still too exhausted and weary.

Just before she closes the door again the woman turns on her heels to address him one last time.

“I do not envy you for the blessing you are to receive” She bites her lip, concerned. “I know it means nothing now, but I promise you the suffering will be worth it”

Her head ducks down.

“If you survive it. I will pray for you that you do”

Before he can say a word in response she’s gone. The door is shut and Connor is left alone with an oil lamp and his own thoughts once more.

* * *

 

                                                                                                                NOW

* * *

  
  


Connor takes a moment to collect his thoughts, pausing in the driveway, instead of immediately opening the front door. He can hear Alice and Kara inside, chatting to each other, and they both sound far more relaxed than he’s heard them… ever. 

He doesn’t want to bring in the negative feeling clouding over him from the crime scene into their new home. If he does Alice will smell it on him and curl back into her fearful cocoon and that’s the last thing Connor wants. Her trust means more to him than he ever expected.

The police officer cranes his head skyward with a sigh and happens to catch sight of Markus looking down at him from a top most window- likely the room they had all agreed the ghost could keep as his own domain. For a split second Markus’ eyes widen and then his lips crook into a friendly smile and he waves, the small smile widening when Connor gives a half hearted two fingered salute that he’d picked up from Lieutenant Anderson in return.

Connor blinks and Markus is gone from the window. Instead he’s sitting on the steps of the mansion with his hands in his lap and his posture relaxed: welcoming.

“Hey” Markus greets. He doesn’t fit in the image of the house and snow. Like all spirits he appears odd on the eyes: almost like a poor photoshop job. An image where there shouldn’t be, with no reality and body to cause it- there’s no light that serves Markus’ appearance, since there is no physicality for the rays to bounce off of. He just is. And it doesn’t quite fit.

Not for the first time Connor wonders about how ghosts are seen by the supernatural. He knows it isn’t about ghosts, but actually about vampires and werewolves and… the others. Ghosts exist in the same state regardless of who sees them and it’s their viewers who change whether they’re seen or not.

“Hi” Connor replies.

Markus gnaws at his lip for a second, and then gets up: approaching Connor on foot even though they both know he could jump the long driveway distance in less than a heartbeat: it’s a courtesy Connor knows it is, but there feels like there’s an element of it being for Markus’ benefit too.

“Con… nor” Markus corrects the nickname quickly, although Connor doesn’t mind. “About this morning-”

“It’s fine, I shouldn’t have ran away” The vampire tries to brush the apology aside, believing it not worth it since  _ he  _ was the one in the wrong but to his surprise Markus huffs.

The ghost puts a hand on Connor’s shoulder. “Let me finish. I’m not sure what I said to upset you but I’m sorry: I’d… I’d like us to be friends. I don’t know a lot about you but you seem really nice and, I went and put my foot it in this morning”

Wisely Connor says nothing to contradict Markus’ self-deprecating smirk.

“Could we start again?” Markus finishes, looking hopeful.

Start again? Connor isn’t sure he understands and when Markus chuckles, he realises he said that out loud.

“I mean can we forget the parts where I was too  _ much _ ” The spirit sighs at himself again. “Kara told me I’ve been coming off a little intense, not just with you and her but Alice too. I’m sorry about that it’s just…”

“Been so long since you’ve felt real” Connor finishes, voice strangely distant. Dark eyes briefly drifting off elsewhere into a deep memory.

Markus closes his eyes, hiding blue and green, and nods slowly. “Yeah” He croaks, thick with emotion.

“It’s okay. I understand completely” Connor says, shrugging the shoulder the ghost is holding as a way to nudge Markus from his melancholy. It works and he’s met by the sight of pretty bicoloured eyes sparkling with charisma Connor could only ever fake. Struggling for something to say in the silence that settles over them, the vampire jumps to the first thing that pops to mind. “You should meet the receptionist at the station, I’m sure she knows everything about everyone with all the questions she asks: I have to wonder why she doesn’t train to become a detective herself”

It’s word vomit, but word vomit that makes Markus laugh.

“Let me guess, her name is Karen?”

Connor shakes his head.

“Rebecca? No, Traci?”

“You got it” The vampire has never been sure what to make of the woman with spiky brown hair and a quick tongue, especially when she’s taken to catching him for lunchtime chats about her wife and probing him on whether he’s seeing anyone. He’s had women get up in his space and inquiring about his relationship status before, but never by a lesbian in a happy marriage. “According to Officer Rosen, Traci as ‘adopted’ me?”

Markus’ laugh gets louder at that and Connor finds he likes the sound. It’s higher pitched than he expects from the other man, it bubbles pleasantly and is so wonderfully soft. Laughter sometimes left Connor feeling tense, like he was missing out on some inside joke, but coming from Markus it nearly makes him laugh too.

“Oh boy, we all know someone like that” Markus says wistfully, and then beckons Connor: finally taking his hand off the vampire’s shoulder. “Come on, let’s go inside- Alice is dying to read us a poem she wrote in class today, but she refuses to show us until you’re here”

Connor arched out a hand in a ‘lead the way’ gesture, inclining his head. “Then let’s not keep the young lady waiting”

Markus disappears then, and a second later the front door opens for Connor. He doesn’t comment on how Markus seems to be practically vibrating with some unspoken emotion and how it makes the overhead lights shine a little brighter: instead he just smiles to himself about it and ducks into the living room where he can hear Alice shouting her delight that he’s finally home.

“Connor, Connor! Sit down, come on. Markus too. Everyone sit down” Alice demands, a rare moment of boldness from a usually timid girl. She smacks the pillows of the couches and once the two grinning men have done as she asks, Alice darts to pick up a piece of folded paper off the table and goes to stand in front of the bizarre life size statue of a giraffe.

Kara murmurs a welcome to Connor as he sits beside her and Markus notes the gap between them that definitely stretches beyond physical proximity.

“Go ahead Alice, nice and clear” Kara encourages, one leg folded over the other and her hands clasped on her knee: looking everything like a proud mother as she watches Alice brace herself. To Connor and Markus, Kara quietly adds. “She got a sticker from her teacher for it”

They make suitably impressed sounds. 

The paper in the little girl’s fingers shake but Alice takes a breath, looking up at the trio of content smiles being sent her way, and clears her throat in such an exaggerated way that Kara and Markus chuckle. 

“This is called ‘Warm’” She fidgets on the spot. “My home is warm, my home is safe, my home has no walls and has no doors.

My home has lots of windows that sparkle and shine,

My home has big smiles and freckles right here in a line”

She points to her cheek, drawing a short invisible line with her mouth pulled into the shiest of smiles.

“My home is silver and my home is brown,   
My home likes to dance in a blue gown.

My home howls and my home growls,   
My home wraps me up in warm towels”

Markus sneaks a glance either side of him slyly, knowing where this poem is going, and both Kara and Connor look transfixed as they watch Alice carefully read one word after the other.

“My home is not one, or two, or three,   
My home is four, but there’s room for one more,   
My home is strong, my home is brave, my home is fierce.

My home is called Kara, and Luther, and Connor,   
And my home makes me feel safe and warm”

Markus wants to ask who Luther is and why it makes Kara start in her seat beside him, but he files it away to find out later and instead slaps his hands together in loud applause even as the other two spectators are still too shocked to move.

Kara seems to recover first and jumps up from her seat to meet Alice halfway in a tight hug but Connor is still sat frozen. His mouth opens and closes, the movement drawing Markus’ attention to the endearing row of beauty spots across his cheek that Alice had sweetly noted in her poem, and subtly the ghost leans into Connor to nudge him back to reality.

“That was lovely, Alice” The vampire finally manages, breathless. He mulls something over for a while, looking up at Alice’s bright blushing face nuzzled in Kara’s hip, and like a spontaneous prompt he pipes up again: “Could you make me a copy of it? I’d like to pin it on my board at work so I can read it at my desk”

The werewolves both perk up in surprise, Kara’s eyebrows raising, and Alice’s feet patter on the spot in excitement. She’s practically swinging off of her mother, unsure whether she wants to hide from them or bow at their applause. Markus thinks it’s adorable.

“Uh huh” The little one chimes, peeking up at them all.

Kara blinks in amazement and breathes a laugh. “Yes, yes you can use the colouring pens I bought you: practice your writing. But after dinner okay?”

Alice nods but doesn’t seem to be completely listening anymore as she breaks away and darts off and away, off to her room to retrieve the pens Kara mentioned. Markus grins into his hand as he hears the hard thump, thump, thump of Alice’s feet as she storms up the stairs and around the top balcony towards her bedroom.

Connor and Kara look at each other, the mood slumping for reasons Markus can’t place. There’s so much history there that he knows nothing about and it tightens like a vice at every opportunity.

“I ugh, I bought you some more shirts while I was out today like you asked” Kara tells him. “I hooked them on your door”

Connor opens his mouth to thank her, but the words die on his lips when Kara sharply turns on her heels and leaves the room: moving too fast to be casual.

The vampire nods at nothing and habitually rubs his hands together, fingers ringing like they’re missing something.

“Well, I best change” Connor stiltedly tells Markus, who’s looking up at him still sat on the couch with an expression Connor can’t place. It was going to start to frustrate him, Connor thought, not being able to read Markus as easily as he could others: the ghost looked at him in an odd way that was distinctively unfamiliar. He was too… too  _ fond  _ in every glance he sent Connor’s way, even in the tiny time frame they’d known each other.

The vampire puts it down to being the first person to  _ see  _ Markus in over a year. There couldn’t be anything more to it.

“Hey Connor, do you want to play some chess when you’re done?” The ghost blurts out, stabbing a thumb without looking in the direction of the board in question. It sits under the window overlooking their garden, unnoticed until now. 

Connor wasn’t used to this. He was used to being left to his own devices, to sit around and ponder on his own thoughts until it was time to sleep. Kara spent time with Alice, and the people before them had rarely spoken to Connor like an autonomous person let alone as prospective company, so it’s understandable that Connor’s reply comes delayed.

“Yes” The vampire nods, hands itching for his coin. Markus’ worried frown smooths out, brightening his face. “Yes I will meet you back here in fifteen minutes”

Blue and green eyes sparkle with amusement at the precise time given and he ducks his head when Connor awkwardly trots out of the room. 

“Fifteen minutes, huh?” Markus muses to himself, lifting from the couch and drifting to the chess board. He picks up one of the kings and purses his lips. “Fifteen minutes…”

 

* * *

The next morning when Connor arrives for work he’s smiling, and even Gavin swallows his comments when the new officer settles into his seat and immediately gets a piece of paper out of his briefcase.

Unable to disguise their curiosity, Reed and two other nearby detectives and officers lean in surreptitiously as Connor smoothes out the note on his desk- careful the corners- and looks down at it like it hung the moon.

The vampire daintily picks a pin out of the shared pot between himself and the currently absent Lieutenant, and spins in his chair to roll towards his empty board. Officers were allowed to put whatever they liked on their pin board, so long as it was nothing obscene or offensive. Gavin had a picture of his grinning nephew and a dozen or so knick knacks from vacations and a printed out picture of two officers, one taking the photo and the other posing by a graffiti reading ‘fuck the cops’, and Hank had his decorated much the same: with the added addition of an old group photo of his last reward ceremony covered in notes from his then colleagues. 

Connor’s by comparison had been hauntingly empty. No sign of any life at the desk, kept so neat it could have been mistaken for unused had the sign of ‘Officer Blaire’ on the front: a fact that had earned him his ‘plastic’ nickname. Connor remained unaware of the silence around the pen, his colleagues watching on with a near morbid fascination as a prettily decorated page was pinned up for all to see.

It was written in bold pink writing, with crudely drawn flowers and bunnies around the edges, and Reed was the only one close enough to make out any of the writing. It was a poem, clearly written by a kid and a young one at that. 

Forgetting who he was talking to in his shock, Reed flicks his pen lid at the back of Connor’s head and ignores the glare the vampire sends his way for it.

“I didn’t know you had a kid” For once Gavin doesn’t sound condescending or rude. Just surprised.

Connor only then notices he’s the hot topic of attention that morning and looks around the precinct at the silence of those around him. 

Almost defensively, he straightens in his seat. “Yes, I do. My niece. Her name is Alice”

He stares Gavin down for a moment- unsure whether he should be offended by the genuinely stupefied expression on the Human’s face or not- and then, mind flicking back to Markus’ cheerful face over a chess board playfully lamenting having lost their game, Connor picks up Gavin’s pen lid from his desk and as Markus had done so with a pawn, the vampire tosses the lid at the other man.

It hits Gavin on the back of his hand.

Connor finishes off with a curt. “Shouldn’t chew your pen, Detective”, and then shuts out whatever answer Reed had in favour of opening up a new folder.

He buries himself in pictures from the crime scene- images he’s not suppose to view but cares little for protocol on it, not when it concerned something so glaringly supernatural-, the symbol on the wall that churned a feeling of revulsion in his stomach for the split second it was on the screen, and landed on the face of the murdered woman. 

There was something about this that pinged familiarity in Connor. The ritualistic way she was presented and the lack of a struggle, but there was nothing specific the man could put a name to. Connor taps the mouse again, flicking through

“God dammit, where the fuck has that gone now” Connor hears Gavin grumble, on his hands and knees with a hand sweeping the floor under his desk: missing his pen lid each time.

Missing.

_ Missing. _

With a start Connor closes the crime scene file and opens up a new database search.

When Hank Anderson rolls in an hour and a half later, earlier than his usual arrivals, he raises his eyebrows at the poem decorating Connor’s board, and balks at the uncharacteristically dismissive hum he gets from the kid opposite him when he tells Connor that he shouldn’t sit so damn close to the screen.

Hell the kid’s nose is practically touching the monitor.

Hank catches Gavin’s eye and he hates that they share a brief moment of comradery: all wide eyes and shrugs, at Connor’s unusual behaviour.

“You onto something, kid?” Hank grouses, tearing his eyes off Gavin to Connor. “It about the homicide from yesterday?”

The vampire nods slowly, eyes flitting as he reads through the lines of the report.

Lieutenant Anderson leans back in his chair. His arms twitch out to either side beseechingly.

“Care to share with the group?”

He only barely refrains from flipping the little shit off when Connor does nothing but slowly lift one finger up in Hank’s direction by way of an answer. Silence. One minute. Sorry, Officer Blaire has put you on hold, please wait.

Reed snorts and this time Hank doesn’t stop himself from flipping off a subordinate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not fond of this chapter, it feels very rambling and the perspectives shift around incomprehensibly but after days of trying to make it seem less so i've given up BLAHHHHhhh i'm so sorry. i also think the tense might be wrong in this, but the fibro is completely messing with my head: hopefully i'll be back on my a game later and i can fix this mess.
> 
> i love hank and connor's dynamic and i feel like it would just be hysterical to have hank treating a 100+ year old vampire like a kid, and connor being his usual cocky shit self when it comes to investigations. connor knows he's hot shit with this stuff and hank is Not Impressed.
> 
> connor's surname given in this chapter is not his real surname, but one he acquired later on and it's blaire after bryan's beautiful, adorable wife amelia who i love and adore. because dechart felt too on the nose.
> 
> and finally YAY chloe!!! my favourite, my baby, the love of my life. her appearance is completely gratuitous because i love her


	7. Jane Doe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note... I have absolutely no idea how police work and body identification works. Call this hand wavey police work. If you work in this field... i am so... so sorry xD

                                                                                                                THEN

* * *

“Leo” 

The man in question looked up to see Markus leaning on the door frame. His voice was soft, the kind of tone Leo hadn’t heard him use outside of talking to their father during his weaker moments, and with the setting sun shining in behind him Markus looked like he was glowing.

The perfect angel child. A voice whispered in his brain bitterly.

“What do you want?” Leo snapped, turning away and rummaging through his drawers once more. He  _ knew  _ it was in here somewhere.

He heard a sigh but ignored it: he didn’t have the patience for Markus’ high and mighty act.

“Looking for this?” Markus said at the same time as Leo snapped a drawer shut in frustration. The elder Manfred spun on his heels to glare at his brother, eyes wide and zeroing in on the small bag of glittering crystals hanging between two pinched fingers. He hated the look on Markus’ face: how gentle his disappointment was.

“Gimme that!” Leo demanded, his hand shooting out like a viper to grab the bag off him, but Markus was faster. Being taller and sober, Markus was easily able to outmaneuver Leo’s attempts to steal the bag of drugs back off him.

Markus hand landed on Leo’s shoulder and stopped the shorter man in his tracks. “Leo, come on. What are you doing with this?”

He stared Markus down for a while. His baby brother: all sweet blue and green eyes, warm skin and angelic voice. The  _ perfect  _ child. Carl’s favourite. Hell,  _ everyone’s  _ favourite.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you” He spat at his brother, making Markus flinch. “Just give me my shit back and stop snooping around for once: not everything is about you”

Leo scowled when Markus had the audacity to look hurt. His eyes went wide and his lips parted in shock at the aggression in his brother’s voice; slowly he started to shake his head, holding the bag further away from Leo’s writhing fingers and pushing on the other’s shoulder to put even more distance between his elder brother and the poison ruining him.

“No, no you’re coming off this right now. We’ll go to a clinic together, yeah? We can find some people who can help you get clean and I’ll be there for you every step, yeah? We can do that, Le-Le. Dad doesn’t even have to kn-”

The sound of the old nickname falling from Markus’ lips sparked a sudden rage in Leo. He didn’t know why it made him angry now when it was something Markus had always called him when it was just them, the two brothers against the world and playground bullies wanting to bite a chunk out of the rich Manfred boys, and he hadn’t stopped once they became men. But this time it triggers a response in Leo that has his fist swinging.

Markus was bigger, stronger, but he wasn’t expecting it and his whole body vaults to the side when Leo’s knuckles smack into his cheek. 

The bag was dropped and Leo practically dives to the ground, scrambling to collect it and once it is in his possession he looked up at Markus.

Oh.

Oh no. No, no, _no_.

“Markie? Oh shit, Markus” Leo breathed out, moving up onto his knees and staring wide eyed up at his  _ baby brother.  _ Markus’ cheek is bleeding, split from one of Leo’s many rings, and even though the blow wasn’t too strong- he’d been hit by far bigger opponents than a man who inherited his father’s sinewy body frame- Markus leaned his full weight on the door frame like a lifeline. His breathing comes out uneven and his vision is glittering not from tears but from watering at the pain of the hit… and maybe a little bit from unshed, shell shocked tears.

Leo pocketed the bag and shuffled over to Markus, who was slowly sinking down the door frame to the ground and looking at Leo in a way that took the elder Manfred boy way back to when they were little kids. Wide eyed and lost, confused as to why the world was so mean.

“Markie, Markie, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean…” Leo reached out to touch Markus’ cheek, and the other let him. 

Markus larger hand closed over Leo’s as pale fingers gingerly pad around the split in Markus’ cheekbone, and his voice came out strained. “Leo, we need to get you help”

His breath comes out in a rush, all at once, and Leo tipped forward until his face planted into Markus’ chest and his hands gripped tightly onto his brother’s shirt: stretching the fabric and cracking some dried on paint.

He hit his brother. He hit his baby brother. Sure they had argued before but they’d always prided themselves in never having gotten physical with each other as they had seen other brothers do.

Leo felt sick.

Markus wrapped Leo up in a strong embrace, accepting Leo’s whimpering apologies with quiet whispers that they would fix this, they would get Leo help and it would all be okay. 

“It’s gonna be okay, Le-Le” Markus cooed over and over again.

A matter of weeks later, Leo stood by the mound of fresh brown Earth and read the temporary wooden plaque that would soon be replaced by an expensive marble carving with one of Markus’ favourite poems on it, and swayed in the slight breeze.

_ It’s gonna be okay, Le-Le.  _ He thought he heard coming from the ground but his hands wouldn’t move, his body wouldn’t obey. He wanted to dig and dig until his hands bled because he could  _ hear  _ Markus down there.

But instead Leo just stood in the graveyard, surrounded by the crisp Autumn air, and reread ‘Markus Manfred . 10 Dec 1989 - 5 Dec 2017’ over and over again.

 

* * *

                                                                                                                NOW

* * *

“You’re not assigned to this case” Is the first thing that came out of Hank’s mouth when Connor showed him his findings. Despite this the Human makes no moves to report Connor for disobeying orders or encroaching where he has no jurisdiction. 

Connor was a patrol officer. A general lackey at the disposal of superior officers until he got some more experience under his belt. He wasn’t supposed to rummage through case files digging up material the detectives should be finding themselves.

Instead of grumbling and telling him to piss off, Hank dropped the file down on the desk and looked Connor in the eye.

“You think this is the girl from a missing case last month?” He clarified.

Breathing through his nose to let out a bubble of frustration, Connor nodded. “Yes. I know the body hasn’t been officially identified yet, but-”

“Ah, ah” Hank held up a finger as Connor had done an hour before. He took a moment to revel in the young man’s pout and tried not to let it remind him of… No. No, it didn’t remind him of anyone. “You think our Jane Doe is the same-” He checked the name. “Leah Pak who was reported missing on November eighth?”

Connor leaned back in his seat. His voice cool. “Yes. Leah Pak. Reported in by her mother and sister at twenty-hundred hours on November seventh, officially registered missing by authorities at oh-four hundred hours on November eighth. Report stated that Pak’s family believed her new boyfriend, a man named Robert Stevenson, might have had something to do with her disappearance, but the search for said boyfriend is still ongoing”

Information was easy for Connor to recite back. It flowed into his mind and fell from his lips just as easily as if he was reading it directly off the page. He had always been that way, always sharp, but his vampirism had only heightened that. 

Lieutenant Anderson looked down at the file, checking the notes Connor had recited, and hummed to himself. “Now tell me how”

“How?” Connor quirked his head to the side.

“Tell me what made you think of connecting this girl and our Jane Doe”

Hank watched as the young man pulled a face, a tiny micro-expression that told him the kid thought it was obvious.

“Unless Leah Pak has an identical twin sister, I could tell by her face”

Two silver eyebrows rose. 

“You’re telling me that you can remember the face of a woman from weeks ago well enough to identify her as a body at a later crime scene?” Hank’s voice was low, sceptical. “That you remember it so perfectly you’re absolutely positive you’re right?”

The vampire took another short breath through his nose. “Yes, Lieutenant. I has the one who organised her file into the archives: I saw the photograph of Pak provided by her family when it slipped out of the file. I don’t  _ think  _ our Jane Doe is Leah Pak, I  _ know  _ she is Leah Pak” 

Hank clicked his tongue and closed the file, tapping it with his fingers in thought. The kid had an incredible memory, if he was right- and only  _ if  _ he was right. After a beat, Hank picked up his desk phone and keyed in the line to forensics.

They answered on the second ring.

“Yeah, this is Lieutenant Anderson. Working on the Jane Doe brought in yesterday afternoon. Yeah… Yeah, listen I want you to compare her to a Leah Pak, reported missing about a month ago… Yeah, yeah thanks. Let me know as soon as you do”

He put the phone down and stared Connor head on. 

The kid looked smug, but Hank can’t deny he might be onto something. Body identification was never as smooth as the movies made it out to be and missing persons were among the first to be explored when an unknown victim showed up: the thing was a lot of people went missing every day, some of them never to be seen again. Usually teams combed through reports for hours before finding a person who fit the description of the John or Jane Doe, so Hank had yet to see someone jump immediately to the right missing person with minimal effort like this and never with so much stone cold certainty: and definitely not a random new cop who had only glanced the picture a month prior when picking up the administrative slack of a more seasoned officer.

Hank hated to say it, but most missing persons posters got ignored or were quickly mulched by the snow in the winter weather:  _ especially  _ cases like the twenty-eight year old, who fit the bill for a young woman running away from home with her new beau and her mother was just overreacting. He could in fact remember thinking just the same… that Pak had just took off with her boyfriend without telling her mother where she went. Happened all the time with young love even if the mother approved of the partner, which Mrs. Pak had not.

Fifteen minutes after the phone call Connor left to start his mid-day patrols leaving Hank alone to finish up some reports of his own. By late afternoon, about half an hour before Hank is set to clock out, his phone rung.

“Dental records just came back, there’s definitely a connection there: both top canines were removed but we’ve got a positive ID on the rest. Want me to take a portrait?” Leslie, a nice woman Hank had met once or twice, told him. She’d worked in her field for around the same amount of time as Hank had and they’d shared their experiences with victim identification. 

“Yeah, do that” The Lieutenant grunted. “I’ll give the family a call”

If there was one thing he hated more than anything else in the world: it was calling a family in to look at a picture of their dead loved one. A loved one they’d probably, no definitely, been praying each night would walk back through their door any day now.

Leslie made a sympathetic sound down the phone. “It’s pretty conclusive, Hank, but-”

“Protocol, I know” Hank hung up before Leslie could say anymore.

The next time he saw that cocky, nosy ass rookie shoving his nose in where it wasn’t authorised he was going to… to… He didn’t know: fuck it.

Goddamn little shit was right.

* * *

Kara was getting antsy, she knew she was. The wolf was crawling under her skin and it was making her take it out on Connor, and she was ashamed to admit Markus too. The spirit didn’t deserve Kara’s pernickety quips about teleporting and coming off too intense: he was lonely and friendly, and she was just telling the wolf get territorial. 

How in the world Alice coped with her wolf, Kara had no idea. The little girl seemed to be in far more harmony with her wolf than Kara was her own.

“Maybe it’s because Alice has never eaten anyone alive” Kara murmured to herself, her tone low and sharp with self-loathing. Kara knew how death tasted and knew how it felt under her claws, and as much as she treated the wolf as a separate entity that exploded from her once a month it was still her. She killed those people. She tore out the wrong person’s neck.

Wrong person. Hah. All of the people she’d taken to the grave were the ‘wrong’ person, but not all of them had a horde of angry followers hell bent on making the ‘stupid mutt’ pay for it.

_ You’re traumatised by what you did in your wolf form. You’re frightened of what your instincts made you do. That’s gonna take time to recover from, Kara.  _ Luther’s soothing voice reminded her, a bittersweet memory and the sensation of his warm fingers fluttering down her cheek to brush away her tears.

There were people, Kara decided, who were made for being werewolves. People who handled it was grace and were able to harmonise with their wolf side. Those people were Luther, and Alice, and seemingly every other werewolf Kara had met, and then there was her.

Kara. Who was at constant odds with herself and wished day and night she could just  _ rip  _ the beast out of her somehow.

Her eyes burned at the vision of Luther’s face when she brought Alice to him. She’d been so lost, so fearful and unsure of what to do because she had never turned anyone before let alone a child. How Luther had crouched by Alice and whispered to her that everything would be okay. How Luther had taken Kara aside once the little one was asleep, and told her how good it was to see her again after so long: he’d missed her.

God she missed him too.

Kara wondered if Luther was even surprised when he woke up that morning to find Kara and Alice gone. After all, running away from him was Kara’s thing now.

“Are… you okay?” The last voice she wanted to hear in that moment chimed in, breaking Kara from her melancholy. 

The werewolf’s head snapped around to glare at Connor. When did he get back? Had she really been so distracted she didn’t hear the door? “I’m fine”

Big doe eyes that she had lately come to warm to only annoyed her more as the wolf inside her wanted to let out a warning growl. The vampire was in her territory. The vampire was encroaching on her at her most vulnerable…

“Is the basement finished?” Connor interrupted her train of thought, his voice snapping and firm. 

Kara gripped the cool marble edge of the kitchen’s island. Before her the half chopped tomatoes sat forgotten on the wooden board.

“Yes” She breathed. The full moon was the next day, making their relief to find a house with a basement so secure and deep all the more potent. The pair had started to panic when they failed to find somewhere as the big date approached: deep in the city there was nowhere suitable, not since their usual hideout was bulldozed to make room for a new parking complex. Kara cleared her throat, swallowing down the rumble lacing her voice. “Yes, I got the last bits of sound proofing done by lunch time, trusting the locks hold we’re all set for tomorrow night”

The vampire nodded slowly. He hadn’t come any closer and Kara deemed that wise. 

“Did you-” She started.

“- I got the chickens” Connor lifted up both his arms, revealing bags of wrapped up cold chickens. Ah, so that was what that beautiful smell was. “And I got a lamb shank for Alice”

Despite how much tension was between them and how much the wolf wanted to rip out the vampire’s throat in that moment, Kara’s lips twitched into a smile.

Her wolf liked chicken. Alice’s had a taste for sheep.

“Thanks” Kara whispered.

Connor set the bags down on the counter top and opened up the fridge, he didn’t look at her as he put them away, a sign of respect that eased her ill tempered wolf. “You’re welcome, I understand this isn’t a pleasant time for you-”

“You understand?” And suddenly the second of peace was gone. Kara’s voice came out layered with a growl, guttural and too deep for a Human woman to produce. “What could  _ you  _ possibly understand? Are you a werewolf? No, no you’re not. There’s nothing for you to understand, Bloodhound”

It’s a testament to Connor’s endless patience that he doesn’t let the urge to fight her take action. His fangs cut into his lip as he closed the fridge door and coolly responded.

“Forgive my choice of words, Kara. I didn’t mean you insult you: I was just trying to help”

As quickly as it rose, her anger popped and Kara deflated against the counter. Her arms folded on the top and her face planted in the folds of her blouse: rolling from side to side as she shook her head, berating herself under her breath over and over again. 

“I know” Kara whimpered. “I know you are, it’s all you’ve ever done and I’m just throwing it back in your face”

The most awkward pat in existence tapped on her shoulder and Kara bit down on the wolf’s cruff to stop it from attacking Connor for the intrusion. 

“If you would like, I could run you a bath and handle dinner tonight?” Connor offered, and the woman peeked up at him through her wispy hair. He looked as uncomfortable as she felt but they’re both too determined to make all this work to comment on it. 

Connor had been at work all day and Kara had been preparing the basement. She had to go pick up Alice soon…

“Um” A new voice interrupted Kara’s protest. Both supernaturals snapped to attention, turning to stare wide eyed at Markus, who stood ramrod straight in the doorway. His aura was confident, and his voice didn’t tremble, even though his hands flexed by his sides. “I could make dinner? I’ve not done anything all day, teleporting foam down the stairs doesn’t really count… You’ve both been so busy. I used to make meals all the time I’d be happy to finish up dinner. You go have a bath Kara, relax”

Kara composed herself. “Oh, Markus that would be lovely but I still have to pick Alice up from school”

“I can do that” Connor chimed in. “Her teachers know me and I’m far from tired”

The werewolf beside him on the other hand looked ready to drop. Battling a wolf within took a lot out on someone who refused to accept their identity.

Realising she was cornered, Kara looked from Markus to Connor and back again before sighing. As much as Connor’s presence set her wolf on edge, the opposite applied to Alice’s own inner canine and Kara had no doubt Alice would be delighted by the sight of the tall brunette at the gates to greet her. 

Markus gave her a board smile when she finally conceded. “Great. We’re having spaghetti right?”

Kara nodded and nearly gave herself whiplash watching Connor skid out of the room to go run her a bath. Markus gave Connor’s back a friendly thump as the vampire passed him.

“Awesome, I make a mean spaghetti sauce. Got a secret ingredient and everything”

“Really?” Kara asked, moving aside so Markus could take over chopping the tomatoes.

The spirit snorted and shook his head. “No, that’s just something I told my brother when we were kids and I never clued him in when we got older. Now you, shoo, go sit down and relax until Connor has the bath finished. Shoo, shoo!”

Markus flapped his hands playfully until Kara’s small frame disappeared into the dining stroke living room. 

Now, where was the pasta…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, i apologise for how lacking my knowledge of how police work goes. i know as much as movies and tv shows do, which is not a lot.
> 
> find me on tumblr @greentamdraws :)


	8. Giraffe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a completely rk1k indulgent chapter with no flashback because i ... honestly couldn't think of anything, my brain has been extremely muddled lately thanks to my disability. there's been a very long wait on this one, i'm sorry about that, my disability that doesn't leave me open to forward planning. i've been away from all tech sleeping pretty much all of the last three days, so this chapter is very very late.
> 
> small warning: reference to taxidermy animals.

Markus tried not to find the whole thing horrific and inhumane. _Tried_.

Alice seemed perfectly content to sit in her half of the basement horror house Markus had helped Kara create. Sitting in a simple, cheap night gown that Markus had been informed would get torn to shreds when the little girl transformed, and braiding her own hair over and over again to pass the time. 

“This is” Markus started, but couldn’t finish as he tried to shake of the bizarre feeling of locking a child into a cell. 

Alice smiled at him. “Thank you, Markus”

Thanked him… thanked him like she had thanked him the night before for making such nice food. 

Opposite them in the glum, metal and foam covered walls was Connor locking a larger cell shut with Kara inside. She wore a similar gown to Alice but instead of sitting calmly waiting for the transformation to start, Kara was pacing and wringing her hands over and over: agitated and nervous.

“What if they don’t hold?” Kara questioned, reaching out to test the bars.

Connor yanked one too to illustrate its strength. “They’re strong enough, Kara. I assure you. I would never provide anything less than ideal for you and Alice”

“I know but-”

“And if in the unlikely event you or Alice do break the bars, the doors are reinforced thrice over” Connor continued over her calmly. Their back and forth smooth with familiarity. Markus could tell this was a discussion they had had many times before he’d come to know them.

Kara humphed and took a seat on the cushion provided for her, mirroring her daughter on the other side of the large basement area. When Markus had lived in the house, the basement had been used to store his father’s finer wines and as a source of scary dares between brothers who’s own imaginations were more dangerous than a dusty old cellar. 

Markus briefly wondered what his father would think about a woman and a child being caged up in his old wine cellar, but dismissed it quickly with a tiny, edging on hysterical giggle.

Connor smiled politely at Kara, the pair exchanging a nod, and turned to Alice. 

“I’ll see you later, and I’ll show you a new coin trick when I do” He promised the child, and she nodded excitedly. 

The only thing Alice was frightened of about her wolf was the pain of the transformation. Connor and Kara desperately wished there was some kind of medicine to give her to make it less so, but nothing worked. Human pain killers and science never accounted for supernatural powers raging through the body. 

Connor gestured to the stairs, quietly letting Markus know it was time they left the girls… to it. 

“The transformation will be starting within the next half hour or so” The vampire informed Markus, as the ghost opted to walk up the stairs with him rather than blink from below to above. Alice waved Markus goodbye and the ghost watched as Connor heaved the first heavy trap door closed on the two pairs of eyes peering up at them.

Caramel eyes met blue and green. “Trust me, you don’t want to be down there when it does”

Markus winced. “You’ve seen it?”

Connor turned away, marching up the next short row of steps until he reached the second trap door. “Something like that”

There was a story there, Markus could feel it, and bit his cheek to refrain from asking anymore. He watched Connor hoist himself up the final leg of the way and in a blink appeared in front of the vampire as he stepped out into the house. Connor gave Markus a quick nod, once again proving he was either more accustomed to ghostly transportation or simply didn’t mind as much as Kara did, and closed the basement door behind him.

He bolted it shut also. For good measure.

For a short while the two men simply stared at the unassuming door- barely any different from the numerous other doors in the house- and Connor tapped his fingers awkwardly, as if he was missing something to fiddle with.

“So Kara’s surprisingly good at home DIY” Markus broke the silence, turning his head to raise his eyebrows at Connor. The vampire blinked back at him for a second and then to Markus’ delighted surprise snorted: a soft laugh tumbling out and for a brief heartbeat Markus could forget he just locked a little girl in a basement.

“Ah… yes she is. I’ve told her she ought to see about finding work somewhere in construction or a store” Connor agreed finally, smirking into the backs of his fingers as he composed himself. 

The spirit noticed Connor’s hands were shaking, oh so slightly, but refrained from commenting… yet.

Instead, Markus popped further down the hallway, away from the back door and basement door, and further into the house: with a flourish he held open the cloudy glass door and gestured for Connor to lead the way. Earning himself a nod as the vampire passed him. 

“Are you going to open all the doors for me?” Connor asked after the second time Markus popped ahead to swing open the way- grinning when his new friend curtly responded an affirmative. Leading into the main foyer the vampire figured Markus would have to be a psychic to know where he wanted to go next and he spied the slight freeze in the ghost’s posture as he came to the same realisation: was Connor going to head to the kitchen, living room… or head upstairs.

Markus blinked to the kitchen and raised his eyebrows.

Connor shook his head.

“Living room?” Markus said, flickering seamlessly between the two words from the kitchen archway to the living room entrance. Connor’s body made an aborted movement towards him, and then detoured off to the stairs instead, and Markus yet out a cry that had the vampire jumping in shock. “Ah a! That’s cheating, you changed your mind- you were going to the living room”

Connor feigned innocence, hand on heart. “Why would I need to go to the living room?”

This was ridiculous, the vampire thought, making no moves to put a stop to their light hearted bickering. There was a pair of werewolves transforming in the basement, a homicide to solve at work, a history tailing him like a ill tempered shadow, and Connor found he was completely content to let this ghost he had met only days before pull him into a childish game. 

“ _ Because... _ you left your coffee in there?” Markus shot back, his eyes narrowed. The taller man straightened when Connor insolently shook his head. “Because you… You are going to play chess with me”

He nodded as if stating a fact.

“Am I?”

“Yeah. We never got to finish our last game, remember? So come on, Con, chess awaits” Markus clapped his hands together, as if he was calling a dog and just as Connor huffed out another peal of laughter a muffled wail seeped through the door boards. 

It sobered them instantly.

More muffled screams and wails were pulled from below. Shaking. Howling. Markus shivered.

“Chess” Connor croaked, and then coughed to clear his throat. 

Markus nodded, eyes fixed on the ground as if he could see through to the women underneath, and in a flash was gone. 

 

* * *

Within an hour the transformation had ended, Connor informed him, although Markus was sceptical as he could still hear wailing coming from deep beneath the house.

“Werewolf vocals travel better than Human ones” Connor assured him once more, quietly moving his knight across to corner Markus’ bishop. “I know it sounds like they’re in pain, but really at this point they’re just Chatting”

“Chatting?” The ghost quizzed, taking Connor’s knight. His opponent gave no reaction: barely any indication he had realised his mistake or that he was losing. For some reason he was winning easier this time. Their game before had been weighted to the vampire winning before they were interrupted by Alice.

Markus watched, green and blue eyes intense, Connor lift a trembling hand to a pawn Markus was convinced the man knew better than to move.

“Hm yes, capital ‘C’ Chatting. Werewolves who’re close in proximity like to communicate” The brunette answered, tone low and quiet. It rumbled, rolled with a barest breath of accent Markus still could not place. “They call it Chatter, werewolves. Some of it’s howls but mostly it’s… Hm… Have you ever heard ferrets at play?”

Brown eyes meet heterochromic over the chess board.

“Um yeah, they make these cute little noises” Markus momentarily contemplated imitating the sounds, but decided against it. “You’re telling me big scary werewolves chatter like ferrets?”

“In amicable situations, yes” Connor smiled briefly. Fleeting, like a shooting star. “Much louder however, which is why we can hear all the way up here. It’s only among friendly wolves mind, you’ll hear something  _ very  _ different if the wolves don’t like each other”

The ghost saw once again a glassy look come over Connor’s dark eyes, clearly lost in a memory and not the game in front of them. He’d seem a look like it on his father many times, whenever he drifted too far into an anecdote about Markus’ mother or his old days at art college. Melancholy, they used to call it, and Markus shivered to think that a vampire who knew how old would have seen and experienced to fall into a memory so deep.

Connor could only be the age he looked for all Markus knew but there was something in the way the man acted and held himself that had the ghost thinking he had to at least be nearing eighty or more. 

“How old are you?” Markus asked softly, and when Connor looked up as if having forgotten Markus was there, the ghost is a watercolour mirage against the dusky backdrop of the Manfred’s grand living room. 

He felt like he was being pulled out of a pool of memory, a membrane waxen around him, and dropped at Markus’ knees . It struck him again how unreal Markus looked. Ghosts never seemed like they belonged in the world of the living- too ephemeral, too vague. With no solid form for light to hit, his companion looked frankly bizarre against the otherwise heavily shadowed and contrasted room around them. 

Markus is crystal clear, too clear, with absolutely no odd shadow casting across his cheekbones nor highlight from the startlingly bright full moon outside. Fleeting while the bookcase behind was solid, permanent. Connor knew if Markus held up a hand to the window, he’d cast no puppet shadow across the floor or even disturb the faint floating particles of dust in the air: visible through the silver glow.

He’s seen ghosts before. Spoken to many and even been threatened by a few.

None looked as sublimely ethereal as Markus did then, sat ludicrously with a life size giraffe statue visible behind him.

In the back of his mind, Connor wondered how Markus died. He would have been in the house, Connor’s analytical mind unhelpfully summarised, uncaring that Connor didn’t want to think about it: which room? Had he just got in from outside, if his clothes were any indication… and when had Markus’ heavy coat shifted into a lighter weight, knitted cardigan of the same colour? It’s sleeves passed the man’s knuckles and like the rest of him it faintly illuminated.

“I’m sorry?” Connor said back, just as softly: as if volume would wisp his incorporeal new friend away. 

The ghost couldn’t find it in himself to be bashful about his questions, he just wanted to pull Connor out of his lull. “How old are you? K.. Kara said she had no idea how old you were: I’m guessing that the stories weren’t wrong about vampires not aging?”

Pink lips parted on a quiet ‘oh’. “Yes, yes we vampires don’t… we don’t age. We’re not technically alive. A vampire scholar, named Yousef, one of the Old Ones, gave his best theory after centuries of study- we are frozen in the split second before death”

Connor didn’t look like he was done, so Markus didn’t do anything but gently nudge his remaining rook forward four squares.

“We function like Humans. We bleed, we heal, we breathe, we eat. We even sleep. But we’re not really here” The vampire’s head quirked to one side. “No one actually knows why or how though. We’re undead but we don’t rot like revenants, and we’re conscious like ghosts but still retain our physical bodies. Vampires… Vampires don’t make any logical sense” 

In his listless talking, Markus noted that Connor looked incredibly soft. In contrast to himself, whom was unaffected by the moonlight, stark contrast shadows cut across Connor’s face- shifting as his head moved subtly with his speech and animated head movements. The light made Connor’s cheekbones seem sharper and Markus itched to sketch him like this: chalk and charcoal. He could practically  _ feel  _ the grain under his fingers as he’d cut a line in coal only to soften it in touch with Connor’s brow bone: or the curve of his cupid’s bow.

Large, gentle seeming brown eyes blinked owlishly. 

“Apologies, Markus, you asked my age and here I go on a tangent” Connor’s mouth twitched briefly but not self-deprecatingly. He pursed his lips in thought, doing a quick calculation. “I believe I am a hundred and twenty-five”

Markus’ jaw dropped.

“You’re over a hundred years old?” The ghost breathed, seeing Connor in a new light. He knew there was a strong chance Connor was old but having a number to quantify made it all the more stark. “Wow”

Connor hummed, taking one of Markus’ pawns. “Born spring eighteen ninety-three” 

“Huh” Was all Markus said at first, moving his bishop across without looking to steal the piece Connor had just used. He doubted either of them were paying the game attention anymore. “Okay, your turn”

“My turn?”

The spirit flashed Connor a grin. “Yeah. Your turn to ask me a question: never played twenty questions before?”

Drily, Connor replied. “Wasn’t in the barracks regime no”

It was actually. The soldiers he had known in the trenches, all of them wide eyed as they dreaded being ordered over the top into no man’s land, knew more about him than anyone else since. They told each other the smallest of things: the street name they grew up on, the name of their first kiss, even where they used to pinch their siblings to distract them during squabbles for sweet treats. 

Silly, tiny little details Connor could recall even now. Even now when the men who’d told him those pockets of life were long gone.

A small detail of their life lived on. Huh.

“Okay then. Why is there a giraffe in here?” Connor settled for, straightening in his chair. All melancholy snapped away from him, shed like a coat, and Markus turned in his seat to look up at the imposing creature. 

Connor preened when Markus’ light laughing drowned out werewolf chatter more acute to his ears than Markus’.

“Oh that? That is Sir Henry Fetta Cheese of Burgundy” The other man announced, matter of fact, and swivelled back around to smile broadly at Connor as though that was a normal name for a… Well, Connor hadn’t known many giraffe’s, who was to say that wasn’t the norm? “And no, I didn’t name him and neither did my brother: our dad did, weirdly enough. He got given it as a present from an old friend of his, apparently they used to talk about the giraffe in the room instead of the elephant because dad’s friend was scared of elephants as a kid”

Connor snatched onto the information of a brother and father tightly.

“He’s made of wood, carved and painted and nailed to the floor, wired to the balcony too- dad was really paranoid he’d fall on one of us some day. There used to be a real skeleton of a whale up there, and a ton of taxidermy animals from all over everywhere here: but tenants didn’t like it all so I guess my dad had them removed” Markus pointed above them, and gestured animatedly to the entire room with a brightness to his face. “They took all the critters out except old Henry.  _ Way  _ too much effort I think”

“Quite” Connor agreed, peering up at the giraffe impressed. He imagined people trying to remove it and laughed. “Is he all one piece or-?”

“Oh no, he was constructed I think. Dad told me about him but I was still a baby when Henry was brought in. From what I recall dad mentioned the only door big enough to bring all the pieces in were the living room french doors, which aren’t there anymore as you can see” Markus arched around and gestured to a set of sliding doors Connor knew led to a massive conservatory. Markus turned back and planted his hands on the table, eager and giving up on chess completely. “So, my turn again. Will you tell me about where you’re from? I can’t place your accent”

Connor looked choked. “My accent?”

“Yeah. You’re really good at the whole generic upper midwest thing, but when you’re tired or relaxed, you get this different twang that I can’t place” Markus noted, pleased by the impressed raise of Connor’s brow. “I wanna know about where you’re from. You know where I’m from after all”

He gestured once more to the house around them. 

“Just a city boy, born and raised in south Detroit” Markus smirked.

Connor would have rolled his eye were he not so shocked.

“You… want to know about where I’m from? Really?”

“Yeah” Markus replied, slightly squeaky. “What’s so weird about that? You don’t have to if it makes you uncomfortable but I would like to hear about it- really, really”

He was almost ready to let the air swallow him up and deposit him upstairs in his room in embarrassment at the invasive question, when Connor’s mouth forms into the prettiest smile yet.

“Wales” Connor said finally, accent the more lyrical one Markus had gotten glimpses of in days past. “South, by Cwm. But my mother was from Scotland, Edinburgh way: her father owned some mines, a real rich man, and my mother left that all behind because she fell for one of her father’s employees. They belonged to  _ completely  _ different social classes and I’m sure my grandfather regretted moving his family down when he bought the mine: I spent the first ten years of my life unaware that the big boss man with this massive, and I mean massive, curled moustache was my grandfather: he’d disowned my mother but carried on living in the area” It sounded like a sad story, but Markus was transfixed, and Connor didn’t look the slightest bit put out by the tone of the tale. He just looked… excited. “My elder sister once broke into their garden and kicked in one of his windows while they were sat having tea. She ran all the way back up the mountain where me and my brother, and our friends, were watching and told us he turned redder than the rose print on mam’s Sunday best- Oh she got into so much trouble when we went back home, not because he’d reported her but because she’d broken the heel of her shoe and she spent the next two months hobbling on uneven shoes or plain barefoot”

Connor drifted into peals of laughter at the memory, not once touched by grief or sadness knowing those days were gone, only pleased to be able to enjoy with another person the knowledge that they had existed. 

“He didn’t report her?” Markus urged. “And didn’t your parents get her any new shoes?”

“Oh no, no grandfather still loved us mam reckoned. If anything went wrong by our fault the worst that happened is we’d get smacked with a slipper. He never spoke to us, me, my sister and I, but neither did he ever hurt or shout abuse at us. I think if it weren’t for the social pressures of the time period, he’d have never disowned mam in the first place… It was just what people did when their daughter ran astray like that. As for new shoes? Psh, no. Daft girl broke her own shoe she had to save up to replace them. We got a pair of shoes a year if we were lucky: and I’ll tell you now, I took very special care of mine”

Markus grinned at the twinkle on Connor’s eye. “Oh yeah?”

“Absolutely. Always kept them as clean as I could, took them off when I was up the valley side…”

They talked for the rest of the night, their words seeping into the woodwork of the room and taking them away into stories of each other’s lives: and they didn’t stop until the wolf chatter once again became shredded into hauntingly loud howls of pain and the sun turned the living room a warm yellow.

Softly, with his practised American back in place, Connor nodded to Markus. “They’ll want baths

“Got it” The ghost agreed, blinking away upstairs while Connor got up to make his way to the basement to let out Kara and Alice. 

**Author's Note:**

> I just fell in love with the idea of Markus trying to help people out and getting mistaken for an evil poltergeist okay. I'm sorry.


End file.
